Testimony of Amy Smith on July 13, 2011
Webb vs Raleigh Co. Sheriff
Case #5:09-cv-01253
U.S. District Court, So. District of W. Virginia at Beckley

Defendant calls Amy Smith; oath given,
Direct by Mr. Williams
Williams; Introduce yourself.
Amy Smith; I’m a native West Virginian, born in Huntington, I went to WVU for nursing, was RN for 20 years, I’m married, a boy 4 ½, and a step child 11.

Williams;
Are you nervous to be here?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
You don’t hate kids, do you?
Amy Smith;
No.

Williams;
Let me direct you to when you were living on Primrose.
Amy Smith;
I had left WV in 2003 to move to North Carolina to be with my then boyfriend. I was homesick and come back to WV. I always loved the mountains of WV visit every year, Beckley is a good place to raise a family, state parks, recreation areas, that’s how I came to be on Primrose.

Williams;
Describe your arrival and essentially how you felt when you were moving in?
Amy Smith;
We moved in March 26, 2004, as we were pulling in onto Primrose Lane, he said “You’d better not drive fast down this road.”

Williams;
That was your first interaction with Mr. Webb, Ma’am, I put up a map up before you. Is this street Primrose? Are you familiar with this map?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
The distance between their driveway and your driveway is 10 yards? That was first time you met Robert Webb?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
What does your husband do?
Amy Smith;
He works for CSX.

Williams;
He was away from home for long periods of time, what times would be typical.
Amy Smith;
To leave on Sunday morning and return on Thursday evening or Friday morning and some weeks didn’t come home, I was home 90 % by myself.

Williams;
Military?
Amy Smith;
Yes, away from home deployed to Iraq.

Williams;
Here is this map and touch screen, circle your house, circle Webb residence and Hatfield’s. From the point of first moving in the neighborhood, tell the jury about how the initial relationship from that time to the next on Apr 8, 2004.
Amy Smith;
That evening he had pulled a large trailer with a bobcat into my front yard. I’m inside unpacking boxes and I asked what he was doing. He said, I’m just going to be a minute. I told him I don’t appreciate you coming onto my property. He run bobcat 8:30 pm to 8:30 am that night.

Williams;
There came a time you contacted the police. Why did you do that?
Amy Smith;
I contacted the Sheriff’s Department, I was new to the area and asked what were the laws on trespassing. He had told me he was running his bobcat to work on his driveway.

Williams;
Did the situation ever escalate?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
Give an overview of the escalation.
Amy Smith;
At that point when the Sheriff’s Department came out he told me to send a certified letter to start the process to him attempting to keep him off property.

Williams;
Did you have concern over a gas line?
Amy Smith;
He boasted of a gas line to house, deputies went to talk to him but he wasn’t there.

Williams;
On April 10.
Amy Smith;
He was on his four wheeler on another man’s property, saying he wanted to talk to them at a certain place and time and smelled alcohol and was slurring his speech. He said the law was looking for him.

Stop. Approach the bench.
Amy Smith continued her testimony at 9:45am.
Amy Smith;
He was very upset that we had called Sheriff Department. He said, I hate the law, I hate society, I drink, I smoke, I carry a gun, you call the law again, they’ll be leaving with their tail between their legs, you don’t want to mess with me, I have a 9mm. I’ll do everything I can to move you out of here within a year. I felt very threatened by him.

Williams;
That’s why you kept a journal? Did you believe he was intoxicated?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
Did he say anything or say to come back later when he was sober?
Amy Smith;
Then he said you’ll run all over me.

Williams:
Why was the fence constructed?
Amy Smith:
To keep him off my property.

Williams;
At some point, did you start using a different driveway?
Amy Smith;
We had the land surveyed; during the time the surveyor was there he wasn’t finished but had painted lines to butt up against drive up to right of way. About 10:30 Rob was out on his four wheeler and went down Primrose. The next morning at 6:15 I left through the driveway to go to work, when I came back and find roofing tacks in my drive, at that point no other driveway.

Williams;
Any neighbor he was friends with, Chris Hatfield view interaction on your property, describe the general behavior between Rob Webb and Hatfield?
Amy Smith;
Pulling out of my driveway to exit, if Rob was with Chris or males we would be flipped off or act like was going to hit our car with his truck, always enter and exit when they were out there around his garage.

Williams;
Would they be in the road?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
Did the Hatfield’s have dogs?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
Do they bark a lot?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
Your example with the dogs?
Amy Smith;
My example, even in my front yard they would bark vicious bark at me, mow grass and they barked constantly.

Williams;
Before July 2006, had you put your home on the market?
Amy Smith;
Not safe there, not happy there, we decided to move, I was pregnant and couldn’t raise a child there or even a pet.

Williams;
Why was that?
Amy Smith;
I was constantly harassed verbally living in that neighborhood by Mr. Webb.

Williams;
I have some questions about July 4, 2006, tell us in general what set the scene.
Amy Smith;
I was home alone, my husband was working a jamboree over 8 hours and was not home all weekend, things were quite about 11:30 pm that night. I heard blaring music, it woke me up and I heard gunfire and it didn’t sound like any gun I ever heard, popping and for almost an hour had gone by.

Williams;
At the time you heard this at 11:30 you had already gone to bed?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
What was the type of music and what was the noise level?
Amy Smith;
It was loud, it was U2, it woke me up from asleep.

Williams;
Music with gunfire?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
What did you do?
Amy Smith;
I looked outside to see what was going on, I couldn’t see but from time to time Rob would walk out in the street, I knew he was out there, I knew where the music was coming from. After the fence line was put in I could just look into the street.

Williams;
What did you do from there?
Amy Smith;
anonymous about my call. I was scared in my residence when I hear guns.

Williams;
Your initial call to the sheriff’s department, you did not think this was an emergency?
Amy Smith;
He had a gun, I was alone and I was scared.

Williams;
Tell us about your conversation with the sheriff’s department?
Amy Smith;
I described what was going on, there is a man with a gun.

Williams;
But they put you through to 911 dispatch.
Amy Smith;
They transferred the call to 911.

Williams;
What was the initial conversation?
Amy Smith;
Basically I told her that a man named Rob Webb in our neighborhood, he was shooting a gun he had there, with a gun they better come and see what he’s doing and where he’s shooting. They told me that someone would be on their way. I hung up at that point. Then they called back, I didn’t know what to think, they asked for a description, where he was, who was in their house and then hung up.

Williams;
What happened next?
Amy Smith;
At that point when I was talking to the 911 operator I was in the process of moving to another room and I heard more gunfire.

Williams;
Did 911 call your house and ask where the music was coming from?
Amy Smith;
Yes and then hung up.

Williams;
Where did you go?
Amy Smith;
From the front to the side of the house.

Williams;
The event had occurred?
Amy Smith;
I heard more gunshots.

Williams;
What happened following the gunshots?
Amy Smith;
At that point I had opened my sliding glass doors, the music was off at that point.

Williams;
Were the dogs barking?
Amy Smith;
Yes.

Williams;
Did you perceive or hear anything else, at what point did you see?
Amy Smith;
I couldn’t see from my house.

Williams;
You opened your door?
Amy Smith;
The ambulance come.

Williams;
What time period it was?
Amy Smith;
Pretty quickly, few minutes.

Williams;
Where did it come to, Amy?
Amy Smith;
I still didn’t know what happened, injury if the ambulance come.

Williams;
The next event was?
Amy Smith;
At 3:45 am the Lieutenant called me, He said he can’t come, he’ll have to talk another time. He said, “He’s been shot and killed.”

Williams;
That was when you were first aware of what occurred down there. You had no relatives living near you, you were scared when you called, potentially in danger. Nothing further, nothing further.

Cross examination by Mr. Griffith.

Mr. Griffith;
Mr. Webb never pointed a weapon at them?
Amy Smith;
No.

Mr. Griffith;
Never physically threatened you with a gun?
Amy Smith;
No.

Mr. Griffith;
You since have moved away. Has anyone else moved away?
Amy Smith;
I don’t know.

Mr. Griffith;
You moved right away?
Amy Smith;
Correct.

Mr. Griffith;
The road that leads to Mr. Tolbert’s property to Mr. Wilson’s, indicate that on the screen.
Amy Smith;
He used the right of way to get in.

Mr. Griffith;
Is there anything special about Mr. Wilson? He was elderly and blind.
Amy Smith;
He would drive in my yard.

Mr. Griffith;
You got on him when he drove on your property?
Amy Smith;
The Hatfield children would play in the yard.

Mr. Griffith;
Did you yell at them for turning their bikes in your yard?
Amy Smith;
My youngest, Austin, several times he would fly out of my driveway and I was in fear of him hitting him. I asked nicely to not come in my driveway. I fenced most of my property.

No redirect.