Teen says he awoke to screams, saw grandmother's killer

By MARTHA DELLER

mdeller@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH — On an August night in 2007, Spencer Combs returned home from his job at Six Flags Over Texas, chatted briefly with his grandmother and then retired to his upstairs bedroom about 1:30 a.m., Combs told a Tarrant County jury Monday.

About five hours later, Combs was awakened by her screams.

Dressed only in boxer shorts, the teen ran halfway downstairs, where he saw a man standing over Bertha Wilkerson. She was lying facedown just outside the door of her duplex in north central Arlington.

"It was several screams," the 19-year-old said, choking up as he testified in the capital murder trial of Dustin Nall, 25, who is accused in the robbery-slaying of Wilkerson.

Wilkerson, 68, was killed three hours after Nall killed his uncle and wounded his pregnant girlfriend, authorities testified.

Prosecutors Lloyd Whelchel and Page Simpson rested the state’s case just before noon Monday.

Defense attorneys Robert Ford and Joetta Keene then called Nall’s mother and stepfather, who testified about Nall’s violent relationship with Danny Nall, the uncle they said abused the defendant for years.

Jurors began deliberating Nall’s case about 10:15 a.m. Tuesday after closing arguments in 213th District Court.

Although evidence was introduced about the slaying of Danny Nall and the assault on Dustin Nall’s girlfriend, Camille Cuellar, the jury will be asked to decide only whether Nall killed Wilkerson.

Fateful night

Combs testified that he yelled at the intruder before running upstairs to get a shotgun from a closet.

As he came out of his bedroom with the loaded gun and the phone he was using to dial 911, Combs saw Nall go into a small bathroom and ordered him to come out, Combs testified.

Nall came toward him, Combs said, and he saw a knife. A 911 recording of the 26-second confrontation between the two was played in court. The exchange was barely intelligible as Nall screamed at Combs to put down the gun.

Combs said he intended to shoot the intruder and pulled the trigger. But the shotgun didn’t fire. Only after Nall ran downstairs did Combs realize that the safety was still on.

Combs took off the safety and followed Nall downstairs where he watched him take something off a small table where his grandmother kept pill bottles. Combs said he didn’t try to shoot Nall again or follow him. Instead, he knelt by his grandmother, who was barely breathing.

Later, a police officer took Combs to Randol Mill Park, where police had Nall in custody. There, the teen identified Nall as the man he had seen in his house.

Officers also had found pill bottles and his grandmother’s car keys, apparently also taken from the duplex, Combs said.

Ford contended that Combs identified Nall because officers pointed him out as the suspect. But Combs said he clearly saw Nall when the two were about four feet apart in the hallway.

Nall’s mother, Laura Addison, testified that her brother Danny Nall had been a father figure to her only son but that he began abusing her son and her.

Addison said she and her son often lived with her brother and other relatives.

The night Wilkerson and Danny Nall were killed, Laura Addison; her husband, Richard Addison; Danny Nall; and Dustin Nall had been drinking for hours at Ray’s Motel, where they all lived, the Addisons testified. They weren’t sure whether Cuellar was drinking.

Richard Addison said Dustin and Danny had been arguing about a car and about Danny’s sexual relationship with Cuellar. He said the men were still arguing when he went to sleep about 2 a.m.

Laura Addison said she awoke suddenly and saw Danny in a pool of blood. She screamed, awakening her husband. No one immediately noticed that Cuellar had been stabbed in the neck, they said.

Addison started to testify that her son had tried to hand her the knife and had asked her to kill him. But Judge Louis Sturns ruled that testimony inadmissible.

Laura Addison said she called police from the motel office but acknowledged that she had delayed telling officers what her son had done for more than two hours. By that time, he was at the Wilkerson duplex, stabbing the older woman, prosecutors said.

MARTHA DELLER, 817-390-7857

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