By Don Aines, Herald-Mail Media
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — More than five years after Timothy “Asti” Davison was run off of Interstate 81 and shot dead, the West Virginia man charged with killing him went on trial Monday in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.
John Wayne Strawser Jr., 41, already convicted of killing a woman in 2015, is charged with first-degree murder in the Jan. 4, 2014, death of Davison, whose last words were played to the jury.
“He’s (expletive) here,” the 28-year-old Maine man said just before the sounds of what could have been gunfire and a vehicle speeding away are heard in the background. A Maryland State Police corporal, since promoted to sergeant, was the first to arrive on the scene, about two miles north of the Maryland-Pennsylvania line.
Davison began a series of 911 calls minutes earlier in Washington County as he headed north on I-81. “I just had someone pull up next to me and start shooting,” he said in the first call.
In a later call he tells a Franklin County dispatcher that his Mitsubishi Montero was struck by a Ford Ranger and forced into the median. Moments later he utters his last words.
Maryland State Police Sergeant Ryan Schaffer testified on Monday that he was the first officer on the scene and found Davison unresponsive and breathing laboriously with a gunshot wound to his head. Davison also had two bullet wounds to his left hand and one to his leg.
In his opening statement, District Attorney Matthew Fogal outlined the state’s theory and the evidence it will present over a trial scheduled to last up to two weeks before Judge Carol Van Horn.
Strawser, of Terra Alta, was having an affair with a Waynesboro, Pa.-area woman, Courtney Breese. A week before Davison’s death, he followed her and husband, Jamie Breese, to and from a Bunker Hill club and made threats against them, according to Fogal.
A week later, the Breeses returned to the club, but did not stay long. Instead of following the Breeses’ silver Honda, Strawser followed the similar-looking Montero north on I-81 during a snowstorm, Fogal said.
The couple did not come forward to report their suspicions until after Strawser was charged in April 2015 with the murder of ex-girlfriend Amy Lou Buckingham. Convicted of first-degree murder in that case, Strawser is already serving a life sentence in West Virginia.
Found at the scene of the shooting was a .44-caliber shell casing which Fogal said was a ballistic match to a handgun found near Strawser’s property. Strawser also had pictures of himself with the gun on his phone and Facebook page, and the box for the gun was found in his house, Fogal said.
Strawser was also the owner of a Ford Ranger pickup that he painted black after the shooting. A Ford emblem was also found near the murder scene, Fogal said. He told the jury they would be taken to see the Ford Ranger in the courthouse alley port later this week.
The jury viewed Davison’s bullet-damaged Montero at the end of Monday’s testimony.
From the shell casing police were able to get a partial DNA profile, Fogal said. When that was compared with a DNA sample from Strawser, he could not be excluded as having been the source of the DNA, Fogal said.
Police also forensically examined Strawser’s cellphone, and compared it to cellphone tower records for the times and areas it was used in during the timeframe of Davison’s murder.
“Why did they (Jamie and Courtney Breeswe) come forward when they did?” Defense attorney Kristopher Accardi asked the jury in his opening statement. Jamie Breese became aware his wife was cheating on him with Strawser, he noted.
Accardi said the couple also sought to claim a reward offered by Davison’s family for information in the case, and later sued the victim’s family. He pursued that briefly when he cross-examined one of the first day’s witnesses, Davison’s mother, Theresa Allocca.
The state’s DNA evidence is “not conclusive” and the state “can’t rule out a lot of people” as being the source, Accardi told the jurors.
Accardi said he would also raise issues regarding the Rossi Ranch Hand .44-caliber revolver the state said was found near Strawser’s property.
Van Horn said the trial would resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
