PORT ST. JOE — Prosecutors called a string of witnesses to the stand Wednesday in the Walt Butler murder trial.
Police officers who responded to the July 30, 2012, shooting at Pine Ridge Apartments recounted the evening’s events. The officers said that when they arrived on scene, Butler and his friend Robert Lynn, who was also in the apartment when Everett Gant was shot, came outside and were ordered to the ground.
Lynn complied while Butler retreated indoors, closing the door behind him, according to the testimony. All officers agreed Butler’s noncompliance raised tension at the scene of the crime.
“Anytime firearms are involved, you’re worried that someone else might get shot,” former Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent from the stand.
Nugent, who ultimately made contact with Butler, and deputies Richard Burkett and Vincent Everett reported smelling alcohol on Butler and said that throughout the process, Butler maintained a blank demeanor.
“He was calm and unconcerned with what was going on at the time,” Burkett testified.
Defense attorney Mark Sims asked each officer if it was unrealistic for Butler to sit down and eat following a shooting, knowing there was potentially a long night of questioning ahead.
“Never in all my years have I seen a shooting suspect stop to eat,” Nugent said. “I wouldn’t think that’d be a thing on your mind at the time.”
Burkett testified he found the “weak and bloody” Gant seated on Butler’s back patio and that Butler sat just on the other side of the glass door, watching television with his back to the victim.
In his testimony Wednesday, Lynn, who was living with Butler at the time, contradicted his prior depositions that Gant made threatening remarks toward the men once the sliding glass door was opened. Lynn testified he’d consumed alcohol prior to the depositions and had consumed two beers prior to his testimony at the trial.
On the day of the shooting, Lynn said he and Butler consumed between 10 and 14 beers each.
Assistant State Attorney Robert Sombathy played the 911 recordings from Butler and Kenneth Dunham, Butler’s neighbor who was with Gant when he approached Butler’s apartment.
After Butler told the dispatcher he had shot a man who tried to get into his home, he explained he was a white man and the man he shot was black. The phone receiver was then set down and Butler could be overheard in the background asking Lynn to bring him another beer.
An unanswered question lingering over the courtroom was who opened the sliding glass door. Dunham, who said he followed Gant to the apartment trying to defuse the situation, said Lynn opened the door and Butler immediately fired his .22 rifle.
Lynn testified Gant aggressively opened it himself, but witnesses who lived in the apartment complex maintained the door was kept locked at all times.
“The door is always locked,” Dunham said. “Everyone knows that.”
Sims questioned the credibility of Dunham, a current inmate of the Gulf County jail who has two previous felonies for theft.
In his testimony, Lynn said Butler’s door was always locked as a rule.
Not in dispute was that once the door to the apartment was opened, no words were spoken by Gant, though Lynn said he appeared more aggressive than normal.
The trial will continue at 9 a.m. EST Thursday at the Gulf County Courthouse.