By BOB GIBBINS
A Cherokee County man told jurors he went to his mother’s house instead of the hospital after being stabbed multiple times because he thought he was going to die.
“I could just feel myself going,” Christopher Crawford testified Tuesday afternoon.
Crawford took the stand late Tuesday afternoon in the trial of Gary Wayne Foote, 41, who is being tried on a charge of assault and battery with a deadly weapon with force likely to produce death.
Cherokee County Undersheriff Jason Chennault was expected to be the first witness this morning when testimony resumed before District Judge Jeff Payton.
Crawford admitted he and others were drinking and taking pills at Foote’s home Sept. 26, 2008. He said he drank half of a fifth of Jack Daniels whiskey and took as many as five Xanax and five oxycodone pills during the evening after going to Foote’s home to play some music.
When asked by defense attorney Monte Strout, Crawford also said he had marijuana in his system.
Strout questioned whether Crawford could remember anything that happened after ingesting the whiskey and pills. Crawford said he recalls waking up to Foote stabbing him in the head with a knife, but admits he didn’t see the weapon.
“Yeah, he snuck up on me and did that,” Crawford said, referring to Foote. Then he added, “Coward,” and stared intently at Foote.
Crawford testified he knows Foote through another friend and has been to his home three to five times, counting the night he was stabbed. He said Foote, Billy Wurl and Crystal Minks were all drinking when he arrived.
Crawford told jurors they played songs until he went to sleep on a pallet Foote made for him on the floor.
He said he initially believed he was being punched in the head with fists and then realized he was being stabbed. He said he struggled to his feet and tried to defend himself.
“I felt my face being cut open,” he said, pointing to a long scar across the left side of his face. “I’ve got a huge scar across my back.”
Crawford said Wurl helped him get out of Foote’s home and took him from Chicken Creek to Tahlequah. He said the entire assault took three or four minutes and culminated in his receiving 19 wounds.
Crawford testified it took 94 staples to close his wounds, but Strout countered that Crawford said it was only half that many staples when he testified at the preliminary hearing about three months after the stabbing. “I went to my mom’s and collapsed on the floor,” he said. “The next thing I remember was waking up in St. Francis Hospital six days later. I was in a lot of pain.”
Crawford, 42, testified his mother took him to Foote’s home that evening because he doesn’t drive. He also said he didn’t pass out, but actually decided to go to sleep.
Crawford denied asking Minks for any of Foote’s prescription medication, but testified she gave him the Xanax and oxycodone, anyway.
Strout said a lab report shows Crawford also had opiates in his system.
“Oxycodone is opiates,” Crawford said. “That’s why it’s on there.”
“Why would they list it separately?” Strout asked. “What are the opiates you had taken?”
“It was the oxycodone,” Crawford answered.
He also said he doesn’t recall Foote cooking a roast for the group to eat the night of the stabbing. Crawford repeatedly denied assaulting Minks with a knife, although Sheriff’s Deputy Tom Moore testified he saw a wound on Minks’ wrist.
Moore was the supervisor on the scene for the sheriff’s office and testified about securing the scene and Foote. He also said he notified Chennault and told him what had taken place.
Crawford said he never picked up an ax and tried to assault Foote.
Strout asked Crawford repeated questions about his drug history, and Crawford admitted he’d been treated at a hospital after shooting methamphetamine. He said that occurred a year before the stabbing.
Crawford said he was not fighting over the knife with Foote when he was stabbed in his back.
“I was trying to get out of the house,” he said.
