Published: Wednesday, December 15, 2010, 5:00 AM
BAY MINETTE, Ala. — Two weeks before she suffered a fatal gunshot to the head, Angel Downs warned that Stephen Nodine might kill her, a friend of hers testified Tuesday.
Emily Simmons, who said she was friends with both Downs and Nodine, testified that Downs confided in her after having several harsh confrontations with Nodine during the weekend of the Flora-Bama Mullet Toss in April.
Downs, Simmons said, told her that if she were ever found dead, it would by Nodine’s hand — not suicide.
“She was crying,” Simmons testified. “He had changed. He was not the person she knew.”
Nodine, who was a Mobile County commissioner at the time of Downs’ death, stands accused of murder, stalking and an ethics charges related to the alleged misuse of his government-issued pickup truck.
Simmons also testified that she was waiting in the car outside of Downs’ home in Gulf Shores at the end of that weekend when Nodine showed up and followed Downs into her home. Later, Downs ran back to the car.
“She told me that he tried to break her arm when they were inside,” Simmons said. “She screamed, and he let her go.”
Simmons was the last witness of an eventful day Tuesday. Defense attorneys will get a chance to cross-examine her today. ?Prosecutors said they expect to wrap up their case later in the day.
The testimony undercut the defense position that Downs shot herself on the evening of May 9.
Other friends of Downs testified that they also witnessed abusive behavior by Nodine.
Tracie Sweatt testified that Nodine knocked on the door of the beach condominium she was using, along with Downs and several other women, for that last weekend of April.
Sweatt told jurors that Nodine opened one of the bedroom doors and found Downs, asleep and in her pajamas, with a male friend, who was fully clothed.
“You’re a whore,” Sweatt quoted Nodine as telling Downs.
Nodine threw what appeared to be a garage door opener and hit Downs in the forehead, Sweatt testified.
Another friend who was part of the group that weekend, Christine Salley, testified that Nodine came looking for Downs on the beach the next day, April 25.
“He said, ‘Where’s that f——-g whore?’” she said.
Salley testified that Downs moved her residence to The Ridge condominiums in Gulf Shores because she wanted a home where she could park in the garage, so that Nodine would not know whether she was home.
Salley also described a trip to a New Orleans Saints game in 2009 that turned violent. She said she learned after the game that Downs and Nodine had a physical fight in the French Quarter but that Downs had managed to get away.
“She was very upset, just sitting in the car with a blank stare,” Salley told jurors. “She had scratches on her, and she had blood on her clothes.”
Defense attorney John Williams challenged the view expressed by Salley and Sweatt that Downs had broken off her relationship with Nodine.
During cross-examination, he asked both witnesses about a number signs that Nodine and Downs were still a couple: After the weekend in April, they dined together at several restaurants, and they spent the day together at Pensacola Beach on May 9.
Nodine and his teenage son also slept over at Downs’ home the previous Friday, Williams said.
Sweatt said that they did not know that Nodine and his son stayed at Downs’ home.
“But, no, given their relationship, it would not surprise me,” said Sweatt, who described the couple’s relationship as on and off.
Earlier Tuesday, a waiter at Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant in Daphne testified that Nodine appeared nervous as he drank coffee on the evening of May 9.
“He just seemed to be a little nervous and fidgety, playing with his phone,” said Joshua King, who refilled Nodine’s coffee and water.
King also testified that Nodine seemed upset as he left the restaurant.
“He made a loud outburst, something like, ‘Oh, no,’ like he had received some piece of startling news,” he said.
In an effort to prove the ethics charge, prosecutors offered testimony from Mobile County Administrator John Pafenbach, who testified that county employees, except for law enforcement officers, are prohibited from using county vehicles for personal reasons.
Under cross-examination from defense lawyer Dennis Knizley, Pafenbach acknowledged that the county does not give the written policy to commissioners when they take office.
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