Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408150048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At least that's what Bedford County General District Judge James Farmer said Friday as he cleared the way for a grand jury to ponder a malicious-wounding charge against a former National Elks Home resident.
The 83-year-old Elks member, John Haskell Sims, doesn't deny that he stabbed a 68-year-old Elks Home resident after an argument the two had about smoking in the home's dining hall. But he says he acted in self-defense.
Sims testified at a preliminary hearing Friday that he stabbed Dewey Riley Barber twice in the chest and abdomen June 4, after he confronted Barber with the knife and a golf club on the west veranda of the Elks Home.
Barber sustained wounds to the liver and was in intensive care at Bedford County Memorial Hospital for six days after the incident. He says he was unarmed and presented no threat when Sims attacked him. He filed a lawsuit Thursday in Bedford County Circuit Court, seeking $600,000 in damages from Sims.
A tall man with graying black hair, Barber wore a dark gray suit, green shirt and bolo tie as he took the witness stand Friday to recount the stabbing.
Looking at the courtroom through shaded eyeglasses, Barber told how he had walked down to the home's dining hall June 4 after having four or five beers in his room with friends. He lit a cigarette at the dining table, he said, temporarily forgetting the home's rule against smoking at dinner.
"Mr. Sims decided he wanted to chew me out. He said, 'Put out that cigarette. You know you ain't supposed to smoke no damn cigarette in here.'
"I told him to shut his damn mouth. He didn't own the dining room," Barber said, adding that he had put out the cigarette before Sims told him to do so.
Barber has lived at the Elks Home since early 1992. He said he and Sims had spoken to each other only a few times and had never gotten along. "I told [Sims] a good punch in the nose would straighten him out," Barber said.
After the two men argued about the smoking, Barber testified, he walked outside the dining hall, where Sims accosted him before leaving for his room.
When he returned, Barber said, Sims was carrying a golf club and a 6-inch kitchen knife. Barber said Sims told him, "I'm going to kill you, you S.O.B."
Barber said he turned away and Sims hit him on the head with the golf club, breaking the club in two. The two struggled and "I felt blood streaming from my stomach. I turned around, hoping he wouldn't stab me in the back."
Sims, a white-haired man who is shorter than Barber, appeared in court in a white sailing shirt and wearing a black straw Panama hat with a flowered hatband.
He said he had asked Barber not to smoke at the table June 4, and Barber invited him outside to fight.
Sims said he had to pass Barber to return to his room, and Barber called him "every piece of bad language he could put his tongue to."
"I went back to my room, and I could still hear him [through the window]," Sims recalled. "I guess I went kind of berserk listening to the abuse. I ... got a golf club ... and for some reason, I don't know why, I picked up a knife.
"I thought if [Barber] sees me with these weapons, he would go to his room or stop the [verbal] abuse."
He said he approached Barber, who was sitting, and Barber stood and grabbed him by the shoulders. In the scuffle, the golf club was broken, he said.
Barber "was still ranting and raving about what he was going to do to me," Sims said. "I tried to get away. I didn't say a word. I took the knife and slashed him and he still kept coming. For some damn reason, I don't know what it was, I stabbed him. By that time, he realized he was hurt" and stopped fighting.
Drew Davis, Sims' attorney, said Sims was defending himself at the time of the attack and did nothing illegal by displaying the golf club and knife to Barber as a show of force.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Krantz said Sims could have avoided the altercation but didn't, showing that Sims was the aggressor.
Farmer certified the charge of malicious wounding against Sims to the Bedford County grand jury, which meets again Sept. 6.
Sims, who has moved to Jacksonville, Fla., is scheduled to testify Oct. 12 in the civil lawsuit against him.
The National Elks Home in Bedford County is a free retirement home for members of the Elks from across the nation.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***