The conviction of Carl Rich for voluntary manslaughter closed the case opened following the 2018 death of Jay Booth closed on Friday, November 11, after the jury returned a verdict late that night.
In October 2018, Carl Rich was indicted on one count of murder by a Greenbrier County Grand Jury for his role in the compound bow-shooting death. His three-day trial began on Wednesday, November 6.
Author’s Note: This story contains graphic imagery.
The defense, composed of Grady Ford and Paul Detch, did not argue for the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. Although indicted on a count of murder, that charge is composed of several potential charges, which takes pre-meditation, deliberation, malice, and intention into account. The defense sought a charge of involuntary manslaughter, an accidental killing.
“Generally I try to argue that somebody ought to be found not guilty,” explained Detch. “I’m not doing that today. I’m telling you that my client is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The relevant difference is that it was without the intent to kill. … In this particular case, Mr. Rich contends that he was using [the bow] to communicate a message. He acted with stupidity, but not necessarily any type of maliciousness.
Greenbrier County Prosecutor Patrick Via and Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Blake argued for murder in the first degree, a “willful, deliberate and premeditated killing,” as specified by the West Virginia State Code. Via specified that the amount of effort that it takes to prepare to shoot a bow, and the malice inherent to pointing a deadly weapon at someone, was more than enough evidence for the murder charge.
“Think about what we’re saying there,” Via argued against involuntary manslaughter. “Accidentally shot someone, through the chest? … That was an accident? It’s not a gun. It was a bow and arrow. This is rage, notch, draw, fire.”
Before the shooting, Rich and Harold Bailes Jr., also known as Little Frankie, arrived at the residence of Shane Sloan. Rich intended to sell a compound bow to Sloan, and entered the residence to find him, Booth, Nikaska Brown, and Michelle Cadle.
“[We were doing] drugs, hanging out, basically,” explained Sloan, who is presently serving time after pleading guilty to accessory after the fact to murder for his role in the case. “I didn’t know [Rich and Bailes] were going to show up. … He was trying to sell me a bow.”
Sloan testified that after Rich arrived, he and Rich both did more methamphetamine, and everyone else in the house had taken the drug throughout the day.
The case rested on the jury’s interpretation of Rich’s and Bailes’ version of what happened next. Rich noticed his cell phone was missing and the group tore through the house to find it. Unsuccessful, Rich accused Booth of stealing it. The two had previously had arguments around Booth hiding the phone as a joke and looking through it.
At the time of the shooting, three people were in the room – Rich, Booth, and Bailes. As the argument between the two continued to escalate, Rich went to the kitchen, retrieved the bow, nocked an arrow, and brought it back to the living room, where Booth was seated. The prosecution called Bailes to the stand, who is serving time on an unrelated charge.
“’I want my … phone. You’re going to give me my … phone or we’re going to have problems,’ basically,” testified Bailes, explaining how the conversation between Rich and Booth went. “[Rich] was holding the bow about half-notch back, but he was not holding it all the way back. [Booth slams his hands and says,] ‘If you’re going to … shoot me, Carl, … go ahead and do it because I ain’t got your … phone.’ … [Rich] basically brought the bow up. I don’t think he got it pulled all the way back, you know what I’m saying?”
At that moment, according to testimony, Booth slammed his hand down on the table in front of him and began to stand. Rich later tesitifed that, at that moment, the noise and action startled and jolted him, and he stumbled.
As he stumbled backward, the bow raised and the arrow slipped from his fingers.
The resulting wound was examined by Dr. Allen Mock, the chief medical examiner for the state of West Virginia.
During his testimony, Mock detailed the nature of the wound; the arrow entered the body horizontally, running parallel to the ground. It entered the body, passing in the intercostal space between the ribs, and cutting the inferior vena cava, the largest vein running blood back into the heart and the wall of the heart. The arrow buried itself eight inches into Booth’s chest. Although best practice when stabbed or shot is to leave the foreign object in the body for a doctor to remove, Mock explained, the nature of the broadhead arrow kept the wound bleeding and Booth likely would have died even if he had not removed the arrow. This depth, the defense argued, is the central piece of evidence supporting Rich’s story.
The depth of the wound would be affected by the type of bow used and the type of arrow fired. The defense called two experts in the field of archery, who explained that the compound bow has an adjustable weight range of 50 to 75 pounds. This is the amount of force it would use to fire the 32 inch aluminum arrow, tipped with a four-pronged, stainless steel broad arrowhead. This type of bow and arrow combination is used for hunting larger game, and both witnesses stated the combination could completely penetrate and exit a white-tailed deer, or even a bear, as long as it did not hit an obstruction, such as a bone. One of the witnesses further stated the combination could break through cinderblocks.
The arrow did not go all the way through Booth and did not hit bone. Therefore, the defense reasoned, the bow was not completely drawn back, but fired from a partial draw. That, in combination with the horizontal angle of entry, the defense argued, that the bow was fired “from the hip” into Booth as he was sitting or as he stood up. Rich’s testimony stated the arrow flew as he was startled, releasing the arrow by accident as he said empty threats against Booth in the argument.
The prosecution pushed back against this argument, citing the various statements Rich made over the course of the investigation. Text and Facebook Messenger chats were introduced into evidence, showing Rich telling friends he was being set up by his brother. Then, after his arrest, in the police interrogation, Rich stated that he didn’t do it and he didn’t know what happened and suggested it might have been someone else in the house. Via argued Rich’s testimony is just the latest version of the story, implying it was as erroneous as the previous statements.
The prosecution also cited part of Bailes’ testimony, in which he explained Rich’s drawing of the bow. Before firing the arrow, Bailes’ stated Rich pulled the string back further, a potential show of the intention to shoot. However, he also looked away at the moment Rich fired, his attention drawn by Booth slamming his hands on the table. Via asked Bailes if he had been afraid of Rich as they left, and Bailes responded “yeah I was scared, I had just seen a murder.”
According to Cadle, who is presently in drug court and is 14 months sober, as the group looked for Rich’s phone, she grew increasingly “concerned” about the argument between Rich and Booth. She left after Rich allegedly told her to take a smoke break, for which her and Brown went to a neighbor’s home, shortly before the shooting.
Via, throughout several lines of questioning, pointed out Rich could have stopped and put the bow back at any moment, highlighting the argument. Multiple times he asked Rich about what he intended as he held the bow, and each time Rich stated he just wanted to scare Booth into returning the phone.
“I had no intention of shooting that man,” Rich said. “I wanted my phone, I didn’t go in there and pick up that bow with the intention [of shooting him], no I did not.”
Rich testified he and Booth had been “friends since we were kids” and they “hung out constantly.” However, in the weeks leading up to June 5, Booth had been stealing or otherwise messing with Rich’s phone, leading to a falling out between the two. However, by June 4, the disagreement had dissipated enough for Rich, Booth, and Bailes to spend time together.
Although the details around the shooting were the center of much testimony, the events following and Rich’s subsequent flight from the scene were also interrogated. According to the testimonies, Booth, when he was hit, moved back on impact and said out loud “you shot me!” Rich and Bailes left out the back door while Booth removed the arrow from his chest and walked to Sloan’s room, where he was changing clothes. Sloan stated he saw the arrow hanging from Booth’s shirt and could see blood. Sloan helped Booth stand, and they walked out of the front door to find a working phone to use to call emergency services. Rich and Bailes, going back to Rich’s vehicle, passed Booth and Sloan. Sloan, after helping Booth down some stairs, returned inside the home to dispose of the drugs before emergency services responded to the scene.
“You’re [in trouble] now Carl,” Booth yelled while standing alone in the street, with no arrow in his chest, according to Rich’s and Bailes’ testimony. “Why … did you shoot me?”
This moment, Rich stated, is the reason for much of his disbelief when he was later told through text, Facebook messages, and police that Booth had later died – Rich saw Booth standing on his own, no blood, no arrow, bolstering the idea he might have missed or grazed Booth with the arrow.
“I got texts saying [he was dead], but I was still struggling with the fact [that the last time I saw him], he was yelling at me,” Rich said. “I didn’t see any blood, I didn’t see any arrows.”
After yelling, Booth went to a neighboring home, EMS was called, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
According to Cadle’s testimony, she went to the neighbor’s home, where Booth would tell her not to let Rich “get away with this.” Corporal John Gilkerson of the West Virginia State Police, Rainelle detachment, was the lead investigator on the case and responded to the scene. Booth, unable to speak due to blood in his chest, confirmed through a nod to Gilkerson that Rich was the man who shot him.
According to the initial criminal complaint, Bailes described the event to police, but also said “[Rich] threatened to kill him and his family if he told anyone what happened” as they were leaving Sloan’s home and while he drove Bailes home. This part of his initial statement to police would be recanted while he was on the stand, where he stated that Rich did not threaten him. According to his testimony, Rich returned Bailes to Belburn and apologized to him for “what had happened.” Someone in the Belburn home then exited and approached the vehicle, handing Rich his missing cell phone, noted he had left it behind. They also learned that police were on the way to the residence, and Rich fled. The police arrived soon after, taking Bailes’ statement.
The difference between Bailes testimony and his initial statement led Via to move to impeach him, a method of challenging the credibility of a witness’s testimony, despite his being a witness for the prosecution. Bailes himself admitted his memory was not good, agreeing with Detch when asked if the “fog of methamphetamine” obscured many of the day’s events.
Rich was eventually arrested through the efforts of West Virginia State Police, Rainelle Municipal Police, the Greenbier County Sheriff’s Department, the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.
After a three day trial, the jury deliberated for approximately five hours, considering whether there was enough reasonable doubt in Rich’s story to sentence him to involuntary manslaughter or if the state’s case was strong enough for a first degree murder charge. In closing arguments, Detch explained each potential charge, from first degree to involuntary, including the jury’s ultimate decision of voluntary manslaughter.
“Voluntary manslaughter, the key element of this is you have to have the intent to kill,” Detch explained before continuing on to argue for involuntary manslaughter.. “We don’t see the malice, we don’t see the the cruelty, we don’t see the premeditation and the deliberation, so voluntary manslaughter is one of the things [the jury] must discuss.”
Rich was taken into custody following the trial, presentencing bond denied, and will be sentenced at a later date.
Read more in the Monday, November 11, 2019, edition of The West Virginia Daily News.
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