On the third day of the trial that could put him away for life or set him free, Thomas Forbes took the stand Thursday to tell an Albemarle County jury how and why his five-shooter discharged in the face of his first cousin once removed, leaving her blind and partially paralyzed.
"I never pointed that gun at her," the 62-year-old Scottsville-area resident testified. "She pulled it until it went off."
A bullet tore through one eye and ruined the other eye of Krystal Dudley, 37, in the yard of a house along Boonesville Road in a rural enclave in western Albemarle County. Forbes and his wife had been in a long-simmering dispute with Dudley over the ownership of a piece of ancestral property on which Forbes had recently won a majority interest.
Trial testimony and court records indicate that less than two weeks before the June 23 shooting, Forbes and his wife had filed a deed showing their majority interest after earlier winning a lawsuit alleging that Dudley’s mother tried to benefit from a forged will.
He said his legal and land victories incensed his cousin, and there were three unpleasant interactions in which Dudley "cussed me out" prior to that fateful day, he said.
"I love all my family, but some of them you got to love from a distance," said Forbes.
Forbes’s mother, also testifying Thursday, was asked by the defense to help make sense of a video of Dudley screaming at family members the day a relative, Daniel Shifflett, died in 2022.
"She went wild," testified Forbes’ mother Patsy Kelley. "She just went crazy."
Forbes told the jury he and his wife deliberately tried to avoid Dudley by choosing to visit the property and its elderly tenant, James White, early on a Sunday morning when Dudley wouldn’t be there.
"I knock on the door and some lady came to the door, and I asked, ‘Could I speak to James,’" said Forbes. "She shut the door, and she never came back."
Unknown to him, he said, the woman at the door was Dudley’s boyfriend’s mother, who summoned Dudley and her boyfriend to the property, a detective testified. Within minutes, the younger couple arrived by car, Forbes said.
"Here comes Krystal," said Forbes. "She had some big guy with her. He is cussing like a sailor. He said, ‘I’m going to stomp y’all’s ass.’"
Forbes said that he wanted to retrieve the paperwork that would prove his legal right to be on the property.
"I said, ‘Give me 30 minutes and I’ll get these papers, and when I come back I’ll have the police with me.’"
Forbes said his purpose that day was to notify the property’s elderly tenant that he could finish out his days living there, rent free, and that Forbes intended to do some bush-hogging on the property.
"You could see their face was red. I’d never seen rage like this," said Forbes. "I went over there in peace, but they came over for war."
Forbes disputed allegations raised earlier in the trial by Dudley’s boyfriend, Travis Lambert, and his mother, Melissa Lambert, that his wife initiated a fight with Dudley by slapping her.
"Krystal grabbed her," Forbes said. "Just started whaling on her and upper-cutting."
Forbes said that Travis Lambert was beating his chest like a "gorilla" and starting to advance on him, so he withdrew the gun he said he routinely carries and pointed it at Lambert.
"He stopped. I put it down," said Forbes, who said he was "scared to death" at the time.
By that point, by his own admission, Forbes had cocked the five-shot, .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. He said what happened next interrupted his plan to holster the weapon.
"Krystal screamed and just took off running straight at me," he said. "She ended up running right into me."
Forbes, who listed his height as 5-foot-4, said he was no match for the similarly tall, but larger, woman. He said he had been weakened by colon surgery that made him shed 35 to 40 pounds.
"She don’t look it, but she’s strong," said Forbes. "She’s a country girl."
Forbes said Dudley knocked off his glasses and tore his shirt and was frantically trying to pry the gun from his right hand when it discharged.
"I never ever pointed the gun at her," he said. "One hundred percent."
Earlier in the trial, prosecutor Susan Baumgartner showed the jury a video of Forbes talking to police after a springtime verbal confrontation with Dudley. Forbes was telling an officer that if he weren’t for being "reborn" he might have waged violence.
"She would have had it, and she wouldn’t be back," he could be heard saying. "I’d probably be in jail, because she wouldn’t have been back."
After Forbes finished testifying Thursday, the prosecutor showed the jury footage from a camera worn by the first police officer on the scene after the shooting.
"I’m the shooter," he says before his wife interjects: "He’s not the shooter."
"She shot herself," he clarifies.
At trial, his lawyer, Scott Goodman, asked him to clarify further.
"I misspoke. I was so wound up," he said. "I was the one that held the gun."
The jury watched about an hour of post-shooting videos of Forbes getting interrogated by police after being read his Miranda right to remain silent.
"I gave that up to tell the truth," said Forbes. "I’ve got nothing to hide."
Forbes stands charged with the reckless handling of a gun, use of a firearm in commission of a felony and aggravated malicious wounding. The latter charge alone could send Forbes away for 20 years to life, if found guilty.
Closing arguments were slated to begin Friday morning.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com