911 tape played at rape trial

Attorneys finished presenting evidence Monday in the trial of Jimmy Joe Stapleton, capping a day of testimony by playing a tape of a 911 call from the night of the alleged offense in 2002.

In an expletive-laced dialogue, the call brought vivid detail to a case that is five years old and one in which the alleged victim, Christa Brae Hart, is now dead.

The call was made shortly after midnight on Sept. 24, 2002, from an apartment building in Church Hill, where a small party had gone violently awry.

“There’s a guy here with a crazy [expletive] knife, and I need him gone,” Eugene “Tom” Marshall Keeler told an emergency dispatcher from inside his apartment, with the phone in one hand and a .380 pistol in the other.

Other voices chime in.

“I need an ambulance, too. One got stabbed,” a voice says.

Keeler can be heard saying, “Do not come in that door. I’m going to drop him, I swear. If he comes in that door, I’m shooting him.”

There is then a crashing noise on the recording and then a gunshot.

“Did you shoot him?” the dispatcher asks.

“Yes I did,” Keeler said.

The tape was the final evidence submitted Monday, after jurors heard starkly contrasting versions of what transpired that night from prosecution and defense teams.

Stapleton, 31, faces one count of aggravated rape and four counts of aggravated assault.

Assistant District Attorney General William Harper said in his opening statement that the case was about “control.” He said Stapleton tried to exert sexual control over Hart, and snapped when others got in the way, going on a rampage with his pocketknife.

Defense attorney David Mullins countered with the fact that Stapleton’s DNA did not match that found in a vaginal swab from Hart – a stipulation to which both sides agreed – and described the alleged assault as “what happens when a bunch of people jump on a man, when a knife’s all a man has.”

In his first public comments, Stapleton took the witness stand, testifying that he was too intoxicated to have sex with Hart, and that he was protecting her when Keeler shot him in the abdomen.

Lacking the live testimony of a victim, prosecutors on Monday built their case on evidence from a detective who investigated the scene, an emergency physician who examined Hart the next day, and two witnesses present during the incident.

They showed a series of photos of Hart’s injuries, including bruising and abrasions on her arms, back, legs, neck and head.

The state’s witnesses, Keeler and his then-roommate, Josh Bogle, both testified that before Stapleton came at them with a knife, they had forced the bathroom door open and found him on top of Hart, raping her.

Court records show that four men told police on Sept. 24 they saw Stapleton sexually assaulting Hart, but the two who the defendant allegedly cut were not present Monday and will not testify. Assistant District Attorney General Barry Staubus would not comment on their absence.

Both the prosecution and the defense began their cases from an earlier scene on that evening at an apartment in Kingsport that belonged to Stapleton’s mother, Ginger Blondell.

Keeler testified that he was alone with Stapleton and Hart, who was mostly flirting with Stapleton. But that changed, Keeler said, after he left briefly and came back to hear Hart yelling from a bathroom, where she was with Stapleton.

Stapleton opened the bathroom door, and Keeler testified he saw Hart’s ripped underwear on the floor. She was wearing a dress that night, according to Bogle’s testimony.

After that point, “she didn’t want to be left alone with him,” Keeler testified.

Stapleton did not mention going into the bathroom with Hart at his mother’s apartment, but testified that both of them had been drinking liquor heavily.

As Keeler surreptitiously tried to leave with Hart in his car, he said Stapleton climbed in, and the trio went to Keeler’s Church Hill apartment. They stood around in the kitchen while he made burgers, according to his testimony, and he and Hart went to his bedroom and had consensual intercourse.

As Keeler left the bedroom, he recalled telling Stapleton, “see, it’s not that hard. I just met her a little while ago. You just have to be nice to them.”

During this time, Bogle and Stapleton’s stepfather, Michael Yarborough, arrived at the Church Hill apartment. Keeler left to pick up another friend, Charley Dean. Minutes after he left, Bogle testified, Stapleton “grabs her [Hart] by the throat, drags her in the bathroom, slams the door and locks it.”

Feeling scared, he called Keeler, who was less than five minutes away.

When Keeler returned, he, Bogle, Yarborough and Dean forced open the bathroom door, according to their testimony and statements to police.

But Stapleton on Monday told a strikingly different story. According to his testimony, he walked into the bathroom to urinate and found Yarborough and Hart “engaging in sexual activities.” Yarborough eventually left, and Hart came on to Stapleton, he said. Somehow, Stapleton said, they both fell onto the floor – he still with his pants down from urinating. He was too intoxicated to get an erection, he said.

Deciding he would leave, Stapleton grabbed his keys, wallet and pocketknife – which he had placed on the window sill coming in – and walked out the door, when he found himself on the ground.

Stapleton testified he was kicked in the head and back as he tried repeatedly to stand. Keeler and Bogle testified that Stapleton pulled his knife while in the apartment, menacing Dean before chasing him outside.

Stapleton said he struck out wildly, not knowing until later that he had cut anyone. He threw the knife away, he said, worried about “doing something stupid.”

He came back to the apartment, where he said Hart was “wanting to be let loose” from Keeler and the others. After Keeler shot him, he said, Hart served as a “human crutch,” helping him get to a neighbor’s apartment.

On the 911 call, after the gunshot, Keeler tells the operator at one point, “I’m talking to a girl. What’s her name? This girl that’s been raped in the bathroom.”

Attorneys are expected to wrap up arguments today.

dgilbert@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2558