Robert Stubbs told a police dispatcher just minutes before he was fatally stabbed in the entryway of his Westbrook home that “everything’s fine,” adding that he was “sure.”
Jurors in the trial of Stubbs’ accused murderer, Tareek Hendricks, heard Stubbs’ voice in a 911 recording Wednesday in the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland.
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Stubb’s calm tone in that recording on the night of April 21, 2011, contrasted starkly with the panic in another recorded call to 911 made minutes later by Stubbs’ wife, Melissa, as her husband lay bleeding to death.
“Help!” Melissa Stubbs pleaded with the dispatcher between screams and swears in the recording played for the jury. “Breathe! Breathe! Oh my God!” she could be heard saying to her husband.
What jurors believe occurred in the time between the two calls could mean the difference between a verdict of guilt and innocence for Hendricks, who is accused of stabbing Robert Stubbs after a violent confrontation and injuring Melissa Stubbs with the same knife in their duplex apartment at 73 Central St. in Westbrook.
Melissa Stubbs returned to the witness stand Wednesday to testify during the second day of Hendricks’ trial, which is expected to continue through next week.
Hendricks, who was sought by police for more than a year after the stabbings, has remained in custody since his arrest in Syracuse, New York, on July 11, 2012.
Hendricks, 32, of New York, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and felony aggravated assault. He admitted to police he stabbed the couple, but claims it was done in self-defense after Robert Stubbs attacked him with a baseball bat and Melissa Stubbs hit him in the head with a chair.
Melissa Stubbs said she made her first 911 call shortly after 10 that night, after she and her husband had smoked a $50 rock of crack cocaine in the third-floor bathroom of their home while Hendricks, their drug dealer, was on the first floor. Melissa Stubbs also testified that she has now been sober for more than two years.
The Stubbses had invited Hendricks to their home as part of a barter exchange: Hendricks would give them crack cocaine and Robert Stubbs would drive the New Yorker to other drug deals in Maine.
Hendricks had also been at the couple’s home on April 20, 2011, but Melissa Stubbs made him leave after she found him bagging crack cocaine in their living room while the couple’s children were upstairs with two other children.
Although Hendricks was at their home by invitation on the second day, Melissa Stubbs decided again that he was unwelcome after she had smoked at least $150 of crack cocaine over the course of the day, according to her testimony. The children were not at the house on the second day.
She told jurors she made the first call to 911 because she wanted Hendricks removed from their home. But her husband stopped her by grabbing the phone.
When the dispatcher called back seconds later, Robert Stubbs answered, saying slowly, “Yeah, everything’s fine.”
Melissa Stubbs testified that she found an unfamiliar woman – an associate of Hendricks – sitting on the couch when she went downstairs, swore at her and told her to leave.
She said her husband went to the kitchen, where Hendricks was eating a chicken wing, and told Hendricks that he wouldn’t drive him to meet with other drug buyers.
Hendricks then swore at Robert Stubbs, who punched Hendricks and began hitting him with a baseball bat.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Marchese, who is prosecuting the case, said in her opening statement that Hendricks could have left without stabbing either Robert or Melissa Stubbs and that Robert Stubbs was within his legal rights to use a bat to get Hendricks out of his home once Hendricks had been told to leave. It is unclear from Melissa Stubbs’ testimony exactly when Hendricks was told to leave the house.
Hendricks’ defense attorneys, Jon Gale and Amy Fairfield, have argued that Hendricks stabbed the Stubbses only after they attacked him first.
Melissa Stubbs is scheduled to return to the witness stand for a third day on Thursday.
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