In dramatic and at times chilling testimony, Montgomery County sheriff's deputy Russell Quesenberry described how he escorted Morva from the jail to Montgomery Regional Hospital and how, after he had been knocked unconscious, Cpl. Eric Sutphin tried to comfort him, telling him everything would be OK.
Quesenberry took the witness stand for about an hour before court broke for lunch.
On the night of Aug. 19, 2006, inmates informed guards at the Montgomery County Jail that a man was down, he said. It was Morva, who claimed he had hurt himself in a fall.
A medic was called from home to examine Morva and determined he should be taken to the hospital. Because he had scrapes on his leg and a knot on his wrist, he wasn't shackled and only one hand was cuffed to a waist chain.
Morva claimed he couldn't put on his orange jail-issued shirt, so he wore the jail-issued blue boxers, orange pants, a white T-shirt and orange sandals.
Quesenberry repeatedly had to tell Morva to walk on his left side, not his right, where his gun was on its holster, he said. As he walked the halls of Montgomery Regional, Quesenberry said, he saw and spoke with Supthin and Sgt. Mark Hollandsworth.
The reason the men were there is still unclear.
After Morva was treated for a possible sprain and his arm wrapped in an Ace bandage, Quesenberry began to escort him out of the hospital, he said. Morva asked to use a bathroom, Quesenberry testified.
Quesenberry said he checked out the one-person bathroom before letting Morva go in alone. He shut the door, heard two consecutive flushes and walked back in, he said. Morva, without his orange pants, stood in front of the toilet. "I don't remember anything after that," he said.
His next memory, he said, was waking up on the emergency room gurney, with nurses frantically running around him. His gun and prisoner were gone. He said he tried to sit up and felt a hand on his chest.
It was Sutphin, he said. "He just told me everything would be OK."
Quesenberry said he suffered a broken nose that required surgery, a broken facial bone, an injured hand and bumps on the back of his head.
While Quesenberry was on the stand, Finch introduced the first piece of evidence in the case: Quesenberry's gun. The deputy said he recognized it by the serial number.
As Finch, wearing blue latex gloves, pulled the gun out of a white evidence box, Sutphin's wife, Tamara, began to sob.
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