Opinion ID: 2188660
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The fight in defendant's backyard.

Text: The scene now shifts to defendant's home on Pine Avenue. Shortly before 9:00 p.m., defendant's daughter, Dia, heard a lot of noise, a lot of hollering in their backyard. Dia ran outside accompanied by her two brothers, Dennis and Lord Tee. (Defendant is the natural father only of Dia and not of her brothers. Gretchen Shaw is the natural mother of all three children and is defendant's fiancee.) Dennis carried a machete outside with him. Once outside, Dia heard [s]omebody running through the woods and a person yelling, don't leave me Jeff. As she approached the backyard, Dia saw her father grappling with another man. Eventually, the two men fell to the ground, with her father on top. Dia saw her father hit the man approximately two times. Dennis and Lord Tee saw defendant chase two men into the woods. Dennis heard scuffling in the woods and someone saying, Jeff, he's trying to kill me. Both Dia and Dennis testified that the man with whom defendant was fighting was not Lawrence Talley. As soon as they saw what was happening, Dia and Lord Tee ran to a neighbor's house to call the police. In her transcribed call to the police, Dia stated that [s]omebody is trying to break in my house and now two guys are jumping my dad. The neighbor ran to defendant's house, saw Dennis, and asked him, where was they fighting at? Dennis gave him the machete, and then the neighbor went halfway back to the rear of the house. He saw back there on his knees a man who told him that he was alright but that they got away. As the man began to stand, the neighbor recognized him as defendant. He did not notice any bruises or marks on defendant. Dennis then returned to the neighbor's house and told his sister that they did not need the police because it was over. The police were called and told not to go to defendant's house. Nonetheless, the police arrived, spoke briefly with Dia, and performed a cursory search of the backyard. Soon afterward, Jeffrey Davis went to defendant's house and spoke with Dennis, asking for Talley. When told that Talley was not there, Davis went to Marie Simmons's house. After Davis explained to her what had happened, Simmons called the Winslow Township Police Department and local hospitals trying, without success, to locate Talley. At trial, defendant attempted to prove that two people, Arthur Ellison and Gary Bey, had seen the victim alive late on the evening of August 26. Ellison testified that he had seen the victim speaking with Bey at the Maple Lake Inn, but indicated that he had seen them soon after dusk and not late that night. Bey did not testify.