4 witnesses heard in day one of jury trial

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- The jury trial for a Sikeston woman accused of running over a man with her vehicle and causing his death began Tuesday in Mississippi County.

Savannah Ree Davis, 29, of Sikeston is charged with first-degree involuntary manslaughter, armed criminal action, kidnapping and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident in connection with the death of Sikeston man John Sharber on July 11, 2014.

In his opening statement, New Madrid County Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Lawson said the prosecution will present a road map of evidence to the jury.

Lawson said the prosecution will prove Davis recklessly caused the death of Sharber by running him over with her vehicle as he lay on the ground and putting her car in reverse and backing over him again. He said they'll prove she used a dangerous instrument -- her car-- to commit the crime, and she committed the crime of kidnapping by picking up his severely injured body and putting it in her car before fleeing the Walmart parking lot before anyone would catch her.

Before Davis drove to the hospital in Cape Girardeau, she drove from Sikeston to Morehouse and Morehouse to Sikeston and then Sikeston to Cape, Lawson said. She didn't go straight to the hospital, he said.

"She tries to but as she pulls up to Saint Francis, there were numerous cops, and she gets scared and pulls away," Lawson told the jury.

Davis went to her friend's house in Cape.

"She gets paper towels and covers her license plates with them. She drives back to Saint Francis and is afraid someone will see her and takes out a bag and cuts holes in it for her eyes and covers her face. She doesn't take him up to the ER entrance. She decides to dump his body in a parking space that's nowhere near the ER-- a man who cannot walk and cannot talk," Lawson told the jury.

As soon as Davis pulled Sharber out of the vehicle, she leaves him on the parking space, drives back to Sikeston, packs her belongings and drives to Blytheville, according to Lawson.

In her opening statement, defense attorney Susan Warren said there was no recklessness or intent in Davis' actions on July 10-11, 2014.

Warren said in 2010, Sharber befriended Davis, who was 23 or 24, at the time.

"He was a married a man and did not admit that he was married, and he started a sexual relationship with her," Warren said, adding during the course of their relationship, Sharber also paid bills for Davis and provided money to her.

"On this particular day/night, he and Savannah had been playing phone tag, and she called him and said she needed money," Warren said.

They met at Lowe's in Sikeston, and Sharber gave Davis some money, the defense attorney said. After she went to get fuel, she decided she needed more money, Warren said. Sharber said he had some items to return to Walmart so Davis -- and another person was in the car with her -- went to the Walmart parking lot to meet him. When Davis arrived, Sharber walked over to her car to have a conversation. As Sharber walks away, Davis hits him with her car.

"The way they're parked, Savannah will tell you that she she thought he passed her car, and she turned and hit him," Warren said.

Warren said Davis panicked and she tried to move the car and got out. She will tell you she did not see any injuries on him.

"She wanted to get him help and wake him up," Warren said.

Lawson along with Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Austin Crowe called four witnesses to the stand on Tuesday: Cameron Green, James "Eli" Whitten, Chris Rataj and Dr. Russell Deidiker.

During his testimony, Green, who was a security officer at Saint Francis Medical Center at the time, said he was working the overnight shift when just after midnight on July 11, 2014, he was alerted of suspicious activity near the emergency entrance. Green said he went outside to check and found Sharber lying in the parking lot.

"He was snoring or breathing heavy," Green said.

However, he said Sharber was not moving or talking. Green said he stayed with Sharber in the exam room for close to an hour before Sharber was transferred to a St. Louis hospital where he died later that afternoon.

Hospital officials were able to identify Sharber because he had his driver's license in his wallet and cell phone.

Next to the take the stand was Rataj, who was working as a detective for Sikeston Department of Public Safety at the time.

Rataj said when he came into work on July 11, 2014, he received a call from the Cape Girardeau Police Department in reference to a subject injured and left at the hospital.

"One of my first tasks was to locate Sharber's vehicle," Rataj said.

Ultimately, Rataj found Sharber's vehicle on the parking lot of Sikeston Walmart. He then asked to see the surveillance videos from Walmart.

During testimony by Rataj, prosecutors played the video footage obtained by Walmart of the parking lot showing Sharber parking his vehicle at 9:01 p.m. July 10, 2014, getting out and talking to a person in a maroon-colored car. As Sharper walks off, the video showed him being run over by the front of the car, which then backed off of him.

Rataj linked the maroon vehicle to Davis. Also cell phone records showed numerous calls made by Davis to Sharber.

Rataj said Davis called Sharber 22 times in a 57-minute period just prior to the incident happening. The last phone call was 8:57 p.m. July 10.

Investigators also pinged the phone. With the permission of a phone company, pinging uses GPS coordinates to locate a cell phone.

Rataj was able to track movements through Davis' cell phone and discovered she was in Blytheville, Ark. Rataj then contacted Blytheville Police Department, who go to the location and find Davis sitting in her maroon car.

When asked if Davis had called 911, he said she did not.

The third witness to take the stand was Whitten, who was one of the two people who helped Davis put Sharber in her vehicle on July 10, 2014,

Whitten said he happened to be sitting at Walmart with his then-girlfriend and saw a man lying on the ground. When Whitten approached Davis, she told him the man was drunk and she was going to take him home to his wife, Whitten said.

Whitten said Sharber was breathing but his eyes were closed. Whitten said he went back to his vehicle for a minute and then decided to go inside and tell the manager of Walmart what had happened.

When asked if Whitten would have known that Sharber had just been hit by a car, would he have called 911. Whitten said he would have.

Deidiker, who is a board-certified forensic pathologist with Parkland Health Center in Farmington, was the last witness to testify Tuesday. He said the cause of Sharber's death was a craniocerebral injury, or traumatic injury to brain and skull area.

The seven-woman, five-man jury listened as each witness took the stand. When the prosecution showed autopsy photos of Sharber's brain and skull, some jurors covered their mouths and looked away after viewing. The images were used for Deidiker to explain the extent of Sharber's head injuries.

After two hours of opening statements and testimony from four witnesses, Judge William H. Winchester III adjourned court at 4 p.m. with testimony to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Circuit Courtroom of the Mississippi County Courthouse.

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