KINGWOOD — A man who has served 28 years in prison for murder testified Friday that his brother committed the crime and he took the blame because their mother asked him to.
Richard Knotts’ mother and older brother, Dale Knotts, are both dead now, and he’s trying to walk free. In addition to denying the truth of multiple confessions he made in the murder of Robert Barlow Jr., Knotts is appealing based on serology test results.
Friday was the first time he took the stand in the case.
“He (Dale) had told Mom what happened, and she asked me to help him out,” Knotts testified Friday. “She said ‘He can’t handle this, but you can.’ ”
And he would do it again, Knotts said, because they were family,
“I can’t hurt him now. I give my word to him and to my mother I wouldn’t never do anything to hurt him,” Knotts said.
Knotts, 59, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. His brother told him once he would step up, if Richard were found guilty, but in truth Dale didn’t even attend the trial, his brother said.
Barlow’s body was found by his family off the Borgman Manown Road. According to testimony in the trial and again Friday, Barlow was stabbed 34 times and shot four times.
Barlow was seeing Dale Knotts’ wife at the time, according to testimony at trial and Friday. Knotts said his brother told him that he had taken “a guy,” whom he later admitted was Barlow, to someplace in Morgantown and tortured him with a knife and gun before killing him Feb. 15, Dale Knotts’ birthday.
Barlow’s body was then left in the woods.
In 2007, Knotts filed a motion for a new trial, arguing DNA evidence not available in 1990 could prove his innocence. Senior Status Judge Larry Starcher is hearing the case after Knotts asked Preston Circuit Judge Steve Shaffer to step down because he knows some of the Barlows.
Knotts said Friday he knew his DNA wasn’t on any of the evidence because he wasn’t at the crime scene.
Expert witness Barie Goetz said he tested three items that had been admitted into evidence at the trial, a shirt of Knotts’ that allegedly had Barlow’s blood on it, blood in the victim’s truck believed to be Knotts’ and a washcloth from Knotts’ home that allegedly had the victim’s blood on it.
Goetz said the blood in the truck didn’t match Barlow or Knotts. Evidence from the shirt was inconclusive, because he could get only a partial DNA profile, but it was not definitively Barlow’s blood, he said.
And he couldn’t find evidence that the washcloth had been tested or that there were any fluids on it, Goetz said. He called the results presented at trial by the State Police Crime Lab on the washcloth “dry labbing” — results not based on tests.
Preston Prosecuting Attorney Melvin C. Snyder III said he concedes the blood on the pickup was not that of Richard Knotts.
The case
Joe Stiles, who was the Preston Sheriff’s Department’s lead investigator on the murder case, said he was notified by Monongalia County police that Richard Knotts had come to the hospital emergency room with stab wounds about the same time the murder occurred.
Stiles picked Knotts up at his home, told him he was not under arrest and could stop the interview at any time. Knotts told him he had stopped to help some people along the road and they stabbed him before he could get away.
Knotts said he thought the three assailants confused him with someone else. During cross examination by the prosecutor, Knotts admitted lying to Mon County police. He told them he was stabbed in Osage. Lying to police is different than lying for family, he said.
In subsequent interviews, Knotts gave, “a very detailed and, as it turned out, accurate,” description of how Barlow was killed, Stiles said. He also directed Stiles to a field, where he produced the knife used in the murder.
At one point, Stiles said, “he looked at me and said ‘Yeah, I shot him.’ ”
“There was no problem talking to him. You almost didn’t have to ask him questions,” Stiles said.
Stiles said Knotts admitted to having an accomplice, whom Stiles suspected was his brother, but Knotts never gave a name.
Defense attorney Jeremy Cooper asked Stiles if he ever served a search warrant on Dale Knotts’ home or questioned him. Stiles said he was never able to get probable cause.
Snyder asked how a shirt owned by Knotts with blood that could be Barlow’s got into Knotts’ house. In reply, Knotts said more recent blood tests on the shirt were inconclusive.
The hearing will resume at 9 a.m. Nov. 25.
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