Nodine on trial: Five key moments that helped shape the outcome of murder, stalking charges

Published: Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 5:30 AM

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — In any high-stakes trial that lasts two weeks, there are bound to be turning points or dramatic moments that leave an indelible mark.

Here are five from the trial of former Mobile County Commissioner Stephen Nodine, which resulted in a Monday conviction for improper use of his government-issued truck and a hung jury on charges of murder and stalking in the death of Angel Downs:

• Stepehen nodine is here.” Those words, which Downs wrote via text message to her sister in Georgia, served as a chilling accusation directed straight at the defendant.

It was as if Downs were testifying from the grave, prosecutors suggested.

Jurors saw the text projected onto the wall of Baldwin County Circuit Judge Charles Partin’s courtroom. District Attorney Judy Newcomb argued that the misspelled name and lack of punctuation — in contrast to other text messages that day — showed that the victim was frantically trying to get the message out.

Downs’ sister, Susan Bloodworth, testified that the victim sent the text message in response to a question about what was happening outside the victim’s Gulf Shores home. According to Bloodworth, Downs had called asking whether she should shoot an intruder in the head, chest or legs.

• Dueling forensics. The key question of the trial was whether Downs was shot by somebody else or shot herself. The medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, Dr. Eugene Hart, ruled the manner of death inconclusive.

But he testified that it was consistent with suicide and told jurors that he held to that opinion even after law enforcement investigators asked him to re-examine the body.

An expert witness hired by the state, Dr. James Downs, sat on the courtroom floor and demonstrated that he thought the victim was sitting on her driveway, her legs crossed or bent, leaning toward the left as a gun was pressed to her right temple.

After the victim collapsed, Dr. Downs said, someone moved her body, leaving drag marks. During an intense cross-examination by defense attorney Dennis Knizley, Dr. Downs testified that he was not saying his re-enactment was definitely the way the shooting happened. He told jurors that it was one way it could have happened.

• Nodine’s explanations. Nodine told Baldwin County sheriff’s investigators several different reasons why he was headed home after spending the day of May 9 at Pensacola Beach with Downs, with whom he had had a long affair. Newcomb used all of them to accuse him of inconsistency.

At various points in a long interview with investigators, Nodine said he needed to get home because it was Mother’s Day, because he had work related to the BP PLC oil spill, because he had not been home all day and because he wanted to watch a Yankees-Red Sox game.

Nodine also told authorities that he realized he had forgotten his wallet at Downs’ home and called three times as he was returning to retrieve it. He told investigators that he reached Downs on the third try, according to testimony.

In fact, according to cell phone records, the longest call was the first call, lasting 20 seconds. Another call lasted just four seconds while the other two went to voicemail, according to testimony.

• Strange couple. Throughout the trial, prosecutors tried to prove that Nodine was stalking Downs, and they put on witnesses who testified about seeing Nodine throw an object at her, yell at her and bang on her door and window.

But defense lawyers countered with testimony that Nodine and Downs spent time with each other as recently as the week before her death. Jurors also saw a photo taken that day of a shirtless Nodine, sitting in a beach chair, holding her hand.

Trial observers strained to understand why Downs stayed with a married man for six often-tumultuous years. Perhaps harder to understand was how Nodine managed to spend holidays like Mother’s Day and Easter with his girlfriend — including, according to testimony, taking his teenage son on sleepovers at her house — without his wife taking action.

• Newcomb’s O.J. moment. Several law enforcement officials and Dr. Downs testified about the great significance of Angel Downs’ hair at the scene, which appeared to be pulled straight back from her head like a fan.

The prosecution witnesses pointed to the hair as evidence that the killer had partially staged the scene.

But Knizley pointed out that the lead investigator never mentioned the hair in his report, and a retired Alabama medical examiner testified that the hair position was not significant. Under cross-examination from Newcomb, Dr. James Lauridson testified that the victim’s hair easily could have ended up in that position.

Newcomb tried to challenge that assertion with a dramatic courtroom re-enactment. She kneeled down and flung herself backward, her head hitting a pillow she had placed on the floor.

But in doing so, the prosecutor’s own hair flared up and back in front of a stunned courtroom.

“When you first came down on the pillow, your hair fanned out,” Lauridson testified.

The maneuver called to mind prosecutor Christopher Darden’s famous request that O.J. Simpson put on a pair of bloodstained gloves in his 1995 murder trial. It backfired when Simpson could not get the gloves over his hands, prompting defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran’s memorable line, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

(Staff Reporter Katherine Sayre contributed to this report.)

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Stephen Nodine murder trial: Testimony describes stormy, violent relationship between Nodine, Downs

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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Judge in Nodine trial changes mind, will allow cameras to shoot courtroom

Published: Wednesday, December 08, 2010, 4:12 PM ??? Updated: Wednesday, December 08, 2010, 4:17 PM

Shortly after announcing that he was barring cameramen from taking video images through the courtroom door, the judge in the Stephen Nodine trial reconsidered that decision, according to one of his staffers.

The reason for the reversal was not immediately clear.

After an early recess in Nodine's murder trial, Circuit Judge Charles C. Partin spoke harshly to the media about what he said was the release of graphic images from the trial. He did not state which television station was involved.?

However, he later reversed himself and will allow cameramen to shoot pictures from the door window. ?

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Update: Mob trial, city board, child porn

Some additional news items:

* Stephen Steed of the Arkansas Leader tells me things are going slowly in the federal trial of North Little Rock Alderman Sam Baggett and Cabot businessman and reputed mobster George Thompson. Jury selection is underway. A number were disqualified because of connections to a variety of people Baggett defense attorney John Wesley Hall said he intended to call as witnesses, including current Mayor Pat Hays and former city officials.

* The U.S. attorney's office in Little Rock announced the indictment of Fredrick Rains, 62, for receipt and possession of child pornography. An investigation began after someone complained to authorities that Rains had taken an indecent photo of a 16-year-old girl in a restaurant. Rains diisputed this, but said he might have focused on the girl's rear end with his cell phone camera. But a further investigation led to the alleged discovery of 7,000 pornographic images on his computer.

* Mayor Mark Stodola, hoping to quickly ram through the city budget, drew an objection from outgoing City Director Michael Keck (he'll be missed) who wanted to talk first about an increase of funding for Central Arkansas Transit. It became an opportunity for complaints about poor route planning, empty buses and the empty River Rail trolley, which City Director Brad Cazort said was clearly a tourist attraction and not a commuter route, as it was originally sold. Keck also had concerns about the parks budget, down this year because of reduced activities, including because of the continued closure of the unrebuilt burned leisure center on 12th Street. The executive session on City Attorney Tom Carpenter has not yet been held.

* City Director Kenneth Richardson said he wanted City Manager Bruce Moore to assure him the $200,000 given to the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce would not be used for lobbying and that detailed reports would be received. Moore said that was correct. That is so untrue as to be perilously close to a lie. The Chamber of Commerce won't say who the city tax money pays. Thus, there is no way to know if we are subsidizing lobbyists or not. And, for the umpteenth time, the Chamber's report on the tax money expenditures is a general balance sheet on salaries, travel, publications and similar line items. It does NOT explain in any specific detail how the money is spent — or prove that it was spent in the manner described To date, Mayor Stodola and City Manager Moore have refused to demand more specific details from the chamber. There is NO accountability on this spending, beyond the assurances of Stodola's French dining partner Jay Chesshir, chamber president. Chesshir takes no questions from the press on this. He believes he is above the law and public responsibility for his handout.

UPDATE: City Director Keck couldn't get a second on his motion to convene in private to discuss City Attorney Carpenter's work. Interesting. Noted: Keck will be gone shortly. Stodola won't. Keck said shortly before the meeting adjourned that he had no intention of seeking Carpenter's resignation or removal, but wanted to talk about his frustration on changes of opinion in interpretation of city campaign finance law that once was interpreted as prohibiting carryover of surpluses, but now has been interpreted by Carpenter to do otherwise. (To Stdola's benefit.)

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After day and a half of jury selection, Stephen Nodine's murder trial sees first testimony

Published: Wednesday, December 08, 2010, 6:00 AM

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — Minutes before she died from a gunshot to the head, Angel Downs sent a text message saying that then-Mobile County Commissioner Stephen Nodine was at her home, the victim’s sister testified Tuesday.

Susan Bloodworth, the first witness at Nodine’s murder trial in Baldwin County Circuit Court, told jurors that her sister had just called her to ask where she should shoot someone who was trying to break into her home — the head, chest or leg.

Bloodworth testified that she told her sister that the chest was the best target and demanded to know if it was Nodine, a married man with whom Downs had a years-long and sometimes stormy affair.

Bloodworth said Downs would not answer but sent her a text message a short time later: "Stephen Nodine is here." Twenty to 30 minutes later, Bloodworth said, she got a call from her sister’s landlord informing her that Downs had been shot to death.

In addition to murder, Nodine, 47, stands accused of stalking the 45-year-old real estate agent and making personal use of his Mobile County government-issued pickup truck.

Prosecutor lays out Downs timeline

BAY MINETTE, Ala. -- Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb laid out a dramatic timeline leading up to Angel Downs’ death.

Defendant Stephen Nodine, called Downs’ cell phone four times on May 9 after he had spent the day with her and others at the beach in Pensacola.According to Newcomb, the sequence went as follows:

• Downs sent a text message to a friend at 7:35 p.m.

• At 7:38, she called her sister, Susan Bloodworth, who did not answer. Nodine called her that same minute. The call lasted 21 seconds.

• At 7:39, Downs got a text message from a friend inviting her to come over to a cookout that evening.

• At 7:41, Downs returned the text, asking what she could bring.

• At 7:42, Nodine called for the second time. It lasted 4 seconds. That same minute, she called her sister again, this time on her cell phone. She got no answer, so called Bloodworth’s home again.

This time, Bloodworth answered, and Downs asked her sister if someone was breaking into her home, where should she shoot him?Newcomb said the call lasted a minute and 50 seconds but that Downs would not tell her sister who she was talking about.

• At 7:43 and 7:44, Nodine called a third and fourth time.

• At 7:44, Downs’ friend sent her a text message to tell her she was cooking burgers.

At 7:46, Downs sent a text message to her sister: “Stephen Nodine is here.”Seven minutes later, Newcomb told jurors, a neighbor called 911.“Angel Downs is dead,” she said.

Just as important, Newcomb said, is what several witnesses said: They heard a gunshot and then saw Nodine’s red, county-issued pickup truck leaving the subdivision at a high rate of speed.

One of those neighbors immediately felt he should check on Downs, Newcomb said.

One witness saw Nodine’s truck in the street outside her condo, turning around. He could not see Downs because his view was blocked by the truck and foliage, Newcomb said.

Defense attorney Dennis Knizley told jurors during his opening statement that his client went to Downs’ home on the evening of May 9 — after spending the day with her and others at Pensacola Beach — after discovering that he had left his wallet there.

"She was alive when he left. ... There is no evidence, no physical evidence, that places him there at or about the time of Ms. Downs’ death," he said.

Knizley told jurors that he will offer an expert witness who will testify that there are three main reasons why people commit suicide — financial problems, troubles with interpersonal relationships and health issues.

Downs, Knizley said, had all three. She was sinking financially because of the collapsing real estate market, had suffered from a life-threatening heart condition and had a tumultuous relationship with a married man. Plus, he said, she nearly died from a drug overdose in 2006.

Bloodworth told jurors that her sister was in a good mood when they talked that morning. Bloodworth said they discussed Bloodworth’s plan to visit Downs in Gulf Shores that summer and a possible job opening for Downs in Georgia, where their family lives.

Bloodworth disputed the possibility of suicide. She testified that her sister gave no indication she might be depressed or thinking about suicide. Bloodworth testified that her sister long ago had come to terms with her heart condition and did not find it to be a stress in her life.

Bloodworth also said she examined her sister’s estate after her death and did not find any unusual bills or other signs of impending financial doom.

With a large photo of Downs projected on a wall and displayed on a pair of monitors hanging from the ceiling in Circuit Judge Charles Partin’s courtroom, Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb told jurors that she will present evidence showing that the victim recently started dating another man.

She said Downs was also moving beyond her life with Nodine, whom the victim referred to as "Crazy" or "Crazy Man" during conversations and written communications, Bloodworth testified.

When Baldwin County sheriff’s investigators questioned Nodine on the night of the shooting, he gave conflicting accounts of his actions, Newcomb said. She told jurors that Nodine told investigators that he stayed at Downs’ home only five minutes after returning for his wallet.

He alternately told them the reason he left so quickly was that he had to get back to work on Mobile County’s response to the BP PLC oil spill; that he wanted to watch the Yankees-Red Sox game; and that he had been gone all day and needed to get home.

Nodine also told investigators that he stopped at TimberCreek golf course because he wanted to hit some balls, only to realize that it was closed. Newcomb suggested that the real reason he stopped was because he wanted to use the facility’s showers and change his clothes.

Knizley told jurors that his client wanted to get some practice in preparation for a golf tournament he was participating in the next day. He said Nodine changed his clothes at a Ruby Tuesday and stopped for something to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Daphne because the Ruby Tuesday was too crowded.

There was nothing sinister about those actions, Knizley said, adding that Nodine was sweaty and grimy from a day slathered in suntan lotion. Nodine did not dump the clothes but put left them in his truck, Knizley said. And investigators did not find a shred of incriminating evidence on those clothes, Knizley said.

(Staff Reporter Kim Lanier contributed to this report.)

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Michael Woolf takes the stand in the trial on the death of the wife, fire wire

MOBILE (Alabama) - Michael Woolf testified today that during a fight with his wife one night, he fired one shot behind him to scare him, heard his cry, then to see his son 2 years, spread on the ground.

"We were all two freaking out," Woolf said, testifying in his own defence in his capital murder trial.

Woolf, 32, is charged with killing 30 Angel Woolf and their son Ayden home Schillinger road remorque.Il called 911 to report the shooting of just after midnight on March 5, 2008. ?

When questioned by his defence counsel why he then killed his wife, Woolf said: "I know."

"I have never hurt my son or any child" Woolf said later. "I would not further reduce Ayden".

Prosecutors said that the father had increased obsessed if Ayden was his biological son after learning his wife had extramarital affairs, and he killed intentionally family tonight here.

The defence argued that the boy fire was accidental and Woolf and then killed his wife in a heat of the moment of passion, which would be the lesser charge of manslaughter.

On the witness stand, Woolf initially appears calm, even though he describes the night, his wife and his son died. As prosecutors questioned, his responses grew more tense.

In the weeks before the shooting, a paternity test has proved more than 99% certainty that Woolf was, in fact, the father of the boy earlier testimony.

Woolf said that he knew Ayden was his son, but he needed proof on paper.

Leaving the test setup, Woolf asked employees to pray for him, according to the testimony of.

"Why did you to pray them for you?", asked the Deputy Prosecutor Jo Beth Murphree.

"Why not?Woolf said."" This is good prier.Il is good to see people pray for you ".".

"Is it because you know that you are at the edge of the murder of your family?"Request Murphree.

"No," Woolf replied.

In the meantime, he said, he pointed to recent infection of the prostate, his wife, extramarital affairs and that his wife had stopped cooking for him.

The night of the shooting, Woolf said, he returned after autour conducting and quit the marijuana.Plus early in the year, he won a 0.38 caliber revolver in Alabama Village drug case, he said.

He has taken up arms firearms in his car and held in his wide trousers to hide neighbours walked into his home, he said.

Once inside, he said, he dropped his pants and took off his shoes - and his wife came screaming from the bedroom.

He said that she grabbed his arm while he held the gun and leads far behind him blow fire.

After the shooting, he said, he could not manage given blood and there quitté.Avant leave, it touches the legs of his son and the boy stopped moving, he said.

In his interrogation Murphree said the revolver was responsible for three bullets, where the gun could take five balles.lorsque police found the weapon to fire, only two had been fired.

She emphasized her chin and cheeks, where Angel and Ayden had been hit, and it was shot for his wife and one for his son.

"Wet you do you?" she said, referring to the third ball and the intent to kill himself after having killed his wife and son.

Woolf has denied that he planned to do this.

Defence should continue to present its case today in the courtroom Mobile County circuit judge Joseph Johnston.

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