Published: October 28, 2009 12:09 am      

Neighbor testifies in fatal shooting

SOMERSET — A neighbor of Jeanine Downing testified Tuesday that she heard her screaming “help,” and the murder defendant yelling “I’ll shoot you” just minutes before Downing was shot and killed.

Margie Rhoads, 22, a cashier at a fast-food restaurant, was living with her parents on the night of Dec. 28-29, 2007, when Downing, 33, died from a single rifle shot.

Downing and her fiance, Bruce Emerick, then 19, had been fighting that evening and struggled over Emerick’s gun at their apartment.

The question is who pulled the trigger.

Emerick faces a charge of criminal homicide and other counts. He has been held at Somerset County Jail without bond since 2007.

Rhoads lived upstairs from the couple in the Section 8 units and heard the squabble through her floor.

“I heard a big fight in Apartment 158,” she told Assistant District Attorney James Jacobs. “I heard Jeanine screaming and yelling, ‘Leave your ... hands off me. ’

“I heard him say, ‘I’ll shoot you.’ She said, ‘Just shoot me.’ ”

The couple and friends in the complex had been going apartment to apartment drinking and celebrating Downing’s birthday.

Rhoads said she could hear Emerick slamming his fiancee against the wall in an argument over a woman.

That kind of embellishment drew a sharp rebuke from defense attorney Jerome Kaharick, who accused her of making things up.

For instance, he wanted to know how Downing knew who was throwing whom against the wall if all she knew was what she heard.

Downing got flustered on the stand, drinking water, crying and – at one point – dropping her head and putting her hands over her ears.

President Judge John Cascio ordered a 10-minute recess so Downing could regain her composure and she walked shakily off the witness stand.

Other witnesses called Tuesday on the second day of prosecution evidence included:

n Megan Taylor, 18, of Altoona, Downing’s sister.

She said she heard Emerick – who had bloodshot eyes and was stumbling from drinking – get angry during a running series of arguments with Downing. Taylor said she heard Emerick threaten to cut himself with a knife at one point, and also say, “I have a gun. Let’s go shoot somebody.”

Under cross-examination, Taylor said she saw Downing strike herself twice in the mouth that evening with the purpose of calling the police on Emerick for domestic abuse.

• Detective Richard Appel of Somerset police.

Appel briefly testified for the prosecution about his investigation before being cross-examined by Kaharick.

The detective said the .30-.30 rifle was sent to the state police in Greensburg for examination, but that “No identifiable latent prints were recovered. No latent evidence whatsoever.”

Noting Emerick was charged within hours of the death, Kaharick demanded, “I want to know what investigation you did at all.”

Appel said it was not only he but a team of officers who investigated and that, “We reviewed the totality of circumstances,” including an oral confession by Emerick.

The detective said that – while suicide was a possibility – he discounted that because Downing did not express a desire to take her own life.

• State Trooper Robert M. Hagins of the Greensburg barracks.

The firearms examiner testified that Emerick’s rifle was relatively easy to fire, with just 2 pounds of pressure needed on the trigger instead of the usual 3 to 6 pounds for that style of firearm.

Nonetheless, Hagins said, he could not get the gun to discharge unintentionally through a series of shock and drop tests.

The only way to get that gun to fire is by depressing the trigger, he said.

The trial will resume today at 9:30 a.m. in Courtroom No. 1 of the county courthouse.