Man Testifies That Drunken Keith Thomas Forced His Way Into Apartment

BY FRANK DeLOACHE
SALISBURY POST

A drunken Keith Thomas pushed his way into Rick Gaskey's apartment early on Oct. 23, 1997, according to one witness, saying "something to the effect of 'I'm going to kick your aÑ, you little son of a bÑÑ."

Witness David Poole testified that an angry, but much smaller Gaskey, holding a gun by his side, yelled several times for Thomas to leave, and Thomas yelled back: "What are you going to do? Shoot me?

I've been ready to die for a long time. It would do me a favor."

Poole, the disc jockey at Gaskey's Silver Bullet nightclub, told a quiet Rowan County Superior Courtroom, "I thought that was the craziest thing I'd ever heard."

"And that's when you really got scared?" asked David Bingham, one of Gaskey's defense attorneys.

"Yes, I did," Poole said.

"And you got the heck out of Dodge ..." Bingham said.

"Yes, I did," Poole replied.

During the confrontation, Poole told jurors he was more or less hiding in the kitchen of Gaskey's small apartment and "peeking around the corner."

At that point in the confrontation, a piece of equipment in the kitchen fell on Poole's foot, and as he bent down, he heard a "thud," like the sound of someone tripping over something. He looked up to see Gaskey on the floor and Thomas "standing over him."

Then he saw Gaskey get up quickly, the .38 caliber pistol in one hand over his head, the two men only a foot or two apart. Poole turned his head to run out the kitchen door and heard a single shot. He never looked back.

"I thought, 'I'm going to die,'|" he testified. "I freaked. I opened the back door. I didn't want any part of it."

Poole provided key testimony for the defense's contention that Gaskey shot and killed Thomas in self-defense. But a grand jury indicted Gaskey for murder, and District Attorney Bill Kenerly pressed Poole with several pointed questions:

- Poole did not come back to Gaskey's apartment to talk to law enforcement investigators. And he didn't come forward as a witness at all for about a week. He offered no reason for his reticence Monday.

- Why, if Poole was so scared of Thomas, did he not use the apartment's chain lock to try to keep Thomas from coming in the apartment? Poole said it wasn't his house and noted later that the door jam was broken and a deadbolt all but useless.

- Though Poole testified that he was scared enough to think about his unborn child "not having a daddy," he also said that he took time to look in Gaskey's refrigerator for something to drink. "Yes, I did," Poole told Kenerly.

- Another witness, nightclub bouncer William "Don" Griffin, testified that Gaskey asked Griffin not to mention Poole's involvement to law enforcement investigators. This morning Griffin said that Gaskey told him Poole had outstanding warrants charging him with bad checks.

Despite the questions, Poole, himself 6-foot-1 and around 225 pounds, said he was personally scared of Thomas, who was taller. And he painted a picture of Thomas coming after Gaskey, beginning earlier that evening at the Silver Bullet in the Day's Inn motel.

Poole testified that he first noticed people gathering at the bar's front door and knew something was up. When he got to the door, he saw Gaskey and Gaskey's girlfriend, Tracey Tarleton, talking.

A bartender at the time, Tarleton testified earlier in the trial that she walked off her job that night after she saw Gaskey paying too much attention to another woman in the bar.

Poole said Tarleton was upset, but Gaskey was trying to "nudge" her back into the bar. Then, Thomas "came behind Rick, pulled him into the parking lot and kicked him twice in the chest."

Under questions from Gaskey's attorney, Poole said Thomas struck Gaskey with a leaping kick - described variously as a "spin kick" or "roundhouse" - to the chest. Poole said he knew that Thomas was a kick boxer, adding, "I had heard him make remarks that he had been in tough man contests."

The blows knocked Gaskey down on the curb.

Gaskey then ran into the bar "like a bolt of lightning," with Thomas in pursuit. Once inside, though, the two men just yelled at each other, as a crowd of people watched.

One of Thomas' friends convinced Thomas to leave the bar, Poole said, and a little while later, Gaskey asked the disc jockey to drive him to his West Side Manor apartment. Poole said Gaskey didn't have a license and he had driven the nightclub owner before.

On the way to his apartment, Gaskey complained that his chest was hurting, and once at his home,

Gaskey took off his shirt, revealing a bruise that formed "a perfect U," like the heel of a cowboy boot, in the center of Gaskey's chest.

Gaskey then got three phone calls, apparently from Tarleton, and eventually traced her back to the Blues Cafe, which is not far away from West Side Manor. Gaskey tried to call Tarleton at the bar and learned that she had just left with a man fitting Thomas' description.

Poole said he feared the China Grove man was coming to Gaskey apartment. "I went to the front door and peeked out ... I saw headlights turning in" and a car then speeding down the complex driveway.

"I closed the door. I told Rick, 'I think they're coming."

Poole told defense attorney Bingham that he began worrying about remaining alive for his unborn child.

"You were scared," Bingham said.

"Yes, I was," Poole replied.

"Do you think Rick Gaskey was scared?"

"I feel pretty sure he was."

Even so, neither Poole nor Gaskey tried to put on the chain latch on the door. Instead, Gaskey put his foot at the base of the door and a hand on the door knob and tried to talk to Thomas with the door "barely cracked."

Poole then moved to the kitchen - "I suddenly got thirsty." Then, he watched as Thomas pushed his way inside. Gaskey had a gun he brought from the bar in one hand, pointed down by his side.

"They were arguing, yelling at each other," Poole said, "obscenities back and forth."

Under questions from defense attorney Bingham, Poole said Thomas was slurring his words. "You could tell he (Thomas) was drunk. He was jumping from topic to topic. He couldn't stay on one subject for very long."

Then something fell on his foot and he looked away momentarily. Then, he heard Gaskey fall to the floor and turned and watched Gaskey get up again, the gun over his head. The two men remained only feet apart.

"Mr. Thomas said he wasn't afraid of the defendant?" Bingham asked.

"No, he was not afraid of him," Poole replied.

As he turned to escape through the kitchen door, Poole heard the single shot - and kept going. He drove Gaskey's van away, stopping only when two of Thomas's friends yelled, "Is he all right?"

Poole told them "|'It would be best not to go in there' because I knew they'd probably freak out."

As he began his testimony late Monday, Griffin, the bouncer at Gaskey's nightclub, said he called 911 about the shooting and, following the operator's instructions, got some towels to apply pressure to the wound in Thomas' neck.

By this time, Gaskey's girlfriend, Tracey Tarleton, had come into the apartment and she took the towels to try to stop the bleeding. Griffin said she was soon covered with Thomas' blood.