Trial opens in Martinsburg slaying

A trial for two defendants accused in the fatal stabbing of one man and the wounding of another began Tuesday in Berkeley County Circuit Court in a case that will see about a dozen witnesses take the stand.

Thomas A. Grantham, 36, of Martinsburg and James G. Cross, 33, of Kearneysville, W.Va., face multiple charges of murder, attempted murder, malicious assault and conspiracy in the fatal stabbing of Andre Jackson, 21, and the wounding of Jacques Taylor on April 23, 2011.


The victims, both of Martinsburg, were attacked on Rock Cliff Drive near Polo Green Drive.

The four got into an argument outside the Brickhouse Bar and Grill at 214 Midland Parkway, according to testimony.

The men and three women — Sheron Kia Yates of Ranson, W.Va., who was in the bar with her sister, Shameka Yates Ford, and their friend, Sharenna Gonzalez, their designated driver — all left the bar when it closed at 3 a.m., according to testimony. The women were not involved in the argument.

Yates testified that she knew Cross from her school days and Grantham only slightly. She didn’t know the victims.

The men had words in the parking lot, Yates told the jury. She said she told them that they all had had a good evening, and it was time for everyone to go home.

She testified that Taylor verbally challenged Grantham and Cross, saying, “If you want to do something you can follow us.”

The defendants drove off with Jackson and Taylor following in their vehicle. The women followed the two vehicles to Rock Cliff Drive in the hopes of stopping any trouble, Yates said.

She told the jury that Grantham and Cross approached the victims’ car and began “punching into it.”  Yates said she and her sister told Grantham and Cross to stop.

Grantham knocked her sister down when he and Cross ran past the women on the way to their car, Yates said.

Jackson got out of his car and stumbled toward a grassy area. Grantham tried to run over him, Yates said.

Two women who were driving by at the time offered to help and were told to call police, Yates said.

She and her sister went to help Jackson, who was bleeding from a stab wound in his side. Yates said when she opened his clothes to check his wounds, “his intestines were hanging out.”

Taylor got out of the car and the women saw that he, too, had been stabbed, but not as seriously as Jackson.

The sisters kept talking to Jackson as he lay on the ground bleeding, telling him help was on the way and “that he would make it,” Yates told the  jury.
“My sister and I stayed there and prayed for him,” she said.

Jackson was pronounced dead in the hospital.

‘He’s dying’