On Monday, Jeffrey Underwood took the witness stand in his own defense of second-degree murder charges. As he started to drive away, he testified, he turned the wheel to avoid hitting Messer, but he thinks Messer might have jumped onto the hood of his car.
“It was so quick, I don’t know,” Underwood said. “I don’t know if I hit him or he jumped on the car.”
In his testimony, Underwood seemed to blame Messer’s movements for the collision.
“If he hadn’t moved forward, none of it would have happened,” Underwood said.
As for why he didn’t immediately call 9-1-1, “I wasn’t aware there was anything wrong with [Messer],” Underwood said.
Prosecutors asked Underwood why he didn’t drive around Messer and his car, as other vehicles had done. “Can you choose that in a tenth of a second?” he asked angrily.
Underwood’s testimony contradicted some of what his two passengers that day had earlier told the court. He denied claims made by Charles “Chazz” Hysell and Donald “Shorty” Autry that he’d encouraged Hysell to beat J.J. Messer and shouted obscenities at another man in confrontations earlier that afternoon. Hysell also said that Underwood drove into Messer despite having space to go around him.
Autry apparently gave conflicting statements to investigators. The night of the crash, he told a Four Oaks police officer that Underwood ran into Messer by accident. But he later told an investigator from the district attorney’s office that he thought the act was intentional.
“I’m not Jeffrey – I don’t know if it was an accident or if it was on purpose,” Autry said in court Monday, explaining his earlier remarks.
In testimony from Underwood and his mother, the jury was told of Underwood’s 2006 car accident that put him in a coma for over a month. When he recovered, he had an impaired ability to think and had limited use of his left arm, he said. He’s on disability and has a home-health nurse.
Updates from last week
After prosecutors finished presenting their evidence Friday, Judge Tom Lock granted a request from Jeffrey Underwood’s attorney to drop the first-degree murder charge and try the 32-year-old Four Oaks man with second-degree murder. Lock refused to drop the charges any further.
Friday’s debate over whether to reduce Underwood’s charge centered around whether evidence showed the killing was premeditated.
Prosecutor Kelly Sandling argued that once Underwood’s car backed away from Jerry Messer, Underwood had time to decide his next move. He then chose to kill his adversary, she said.
“The defendant formed that intent when he backed up,” Sandling said. “The defendant felt like his masculinity had been called into question. The defendant chose not to go around the victim in this case.”
But Jack O’Hale, Underwood’s attorney, said his client was just trying to get away from a violent situation, and evidence supports at most a charge of misdemeanor hit-and-run.
Day 2 Update
On Wednesday, the court heard from a series of eyewitnesses for the prosecution. They testified that they saw Jerry Messer walking back toward his car when he was struck by Jeffrey Underwood's car. Also, they indicated that other cars had driven around Messer's parked car at the intersection of N.C. 96 and U.S. 701 in Four Oaks, and that he had room to do so as well.
Among the witnesses was J.J. Messer, the victim's son who was with him during the deadly incident. "[Underwood] made it his choice to run my father over and murder him," the younger Messer said, choking up with emotion.
Judge jails witness
A failed alarm clock sent a witness to jail during the Jeffrey Underwood murder trial Wednesday.
David Bradley “Brad” Wicker, 23, was set to wrap up his testimony at 10 a.m. He was nearby when Jerry Messer, the victim in the case, was hit by Underwood’s car.
But at 10, Wicker wasn’t in Johnston County Superior Court. Judge Tom Lock sent a Selma police officer to Wicker’s home, and the officer brought him to court.
Wicker told the judge that his power had gone out during a storm overnight, and his alarm clock didn’t go off in the morning. He’d been up until about 1 a.m. the night before with his kids, he said.
“I cannot afford to stay out of work and go to jail,” Wicker said.
But Wicker’s pleas didn’t sway Lock, who found him guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to 24 hours in the Johnston County Jail. Lock said Wicker was “grossly negligent” in adhering to the court’s schedule.
Original story
After almost two days of jury selection, attorneys made their opening remarks Tuesday in the murder trial of Jeffrey Underwood, who's accused of killing 43-year-old Jerry Messer with a car in 2008.
Both the prosecution and the defense attorney agreed that Underwood's car hit Messer after the two men had a confrontation involving a knife at the intersection of N.C. 96 and U.S. 701 in Four Oaks. But they gave the jury differing perspectives on how it happened and whether Underwood hit Messer intentionally.
"This case is about a father protecting a son, and it cost him his life," prosecutor Lori Goins said. She said the highway confrontation happened after Messer's son, J.J., felt threatened by Underwood and others earlier in the afternoon at the home of J.J. Messer's girlfriend.
Goins told jurors her evidence will show that as Jerry Messer walked away from Underwood's car, Underwood backed up about 20 feet and drove directly toward Messer.
"This defendent kept going," Goins said. "He didn't stop, even when his friends pleaded with him. He left Jerry Messer laying in the road with head trauma, bleeding, making gurgling sounds."
But Jack O'Hale, the defense attorney representing Underwood, told the jury a different story. O'Hale said that, in the confrontation between Jerry Messer and Underwood, Messer grabbed a knife, put it to Underwood's throat and threatened to kill him.
"Because he is scared, and he wants to extricate himself from the situation, Jeffrey Underwood's vehicle accidentally strikes Jerry Messer," O'Hale said, citing witness accounts.
Shortly after Underwood drove away from the accident, O'Hale said, his client went with his mother to the Four Oaks Police Department to report what happened.
