The wife argued with Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham during the trial.
Newcomb is accused of stabbing Dennis Toler to death at Toler’s home near Man.
Johnna Newcomb's testimony was different from her original statements to police about the two incidents where Newcomb allegedly stabbed Toler in September 2005 and then stabbed him to death in April 2006.
Originally, she said that on April 1, 2006, she was at Toler's home starting a car when her husband showed up and stabbed her first, then he attacked Toler, taunting him while he lay on his bed.
Wednesday, she could only remember "bits and pieces" of what happened and claimed she lied to police in 2005 and 2006 because she was angry at Newcomb for cutting off her supply of drugs. In court, she claimed Newcomb did not attack her or Toler and that Toler was reaching for a gun when her husband grabbed his arm and that she got stabbed when she got between the two struggling men.
Newcomb testified she and her husband were married 15 years and that she became addicted to OxyContin after an accident. She said Paul Newcomb was a good husband and father and worked to provide for the family, but she started having marital problems because of drugs.
"I was addicted to drugs and I was going out and doing whatever I had to do to get them," she said.
She said she often left home and stayed gone for days at a time between 2004-2006. She met Dennis Toler standing in line at the methadone clinic and he asked her if she knew anybody who wanted to buy methadone. Later they met and he gave her drugs.
"I would go stay with him for drugs. I let him think we were dating," she testified.
Brian Abraham said Toler was her boyfriend and she stayed with him often. Johnna Newcomb denied romance claiming the relationship was based on sex for drugs and that Toler was also sleeping with his ex-wife at the time. She said Toler got more methadone than she did so she stayed with him to get it. She claimed she snuck a phone into the Toler home to call Paul as Toler took his phone with him when he left.
When Abraham asked her about the September 2005 stabbing incident at the clinic she said, "I don't remember much about it, because I had so much drugs in my system." Abraham showed her original statement to the Williamson police and noted she did not mention stopping on the way there to get more methadone illicitly.
"Did you think I would tell the police I would stop and buy drugs?" Johnna Newcomb said, adding she did not remember what she told police.
Abraham read the statement where she said she heard Paul Newcomb call to her at the parking lot and he went over to the car, opened the door and asked Toler if he liked being with his wife and began cutting him. Abraham asked her why she did not mention Toler having a knife that day. She testified there were other things she did not tell police that day. She said she thought Paul was hitting Dennis with his fist. She said her memories of the April 1, 2006 stabbing were "vague" and that she was on so much methadone she could not remember what she told police.
She said she called Paul to come get her and take her to the clinic and that she started Toler's car as he (Toler) was going to the methadone clinic in Charleston. She then gave a drastically different version of the events of what happened the night Toler died from her original statement to police that morning.
When Abraham asked her why she told police Paul stabbed her by the car, she said, "the reason I did that was because he took my drug supply from me."
"When did he take your drugs from you?" Abraham countered.
She said when the men fought she knew she would not get any more drugs from Denny Toler.
"That's why I was so mad at him (Paul). That's why I gave lies to the police to write down," she said.
She was also confused about a preliminary hearing in Magistrate Court which she thought was a trial later claiming she did not remember anything about it either.
In the new version of events she said she was tired of staying with Toler and wanted to go home and get straightened out. She began sobbing and said, "you have to understand, when you are an addict, you are sick, if someone has what you need (drugs) they hold it over your head." She also said she tried to tell Denny Toler she was sorry for leading him on when he died in her lap.
She also claimed Toler had a gun in a closet behind the door which he was reaching for when Paul Newcomb came in. She found it one day when she "would plunder and look for his methadone." She also claimed there were open knives and box cutters "all over" Toler's apartment. The knife Newcomb used was part of her son's knife collection.
"Did Paul stand over him and tell him he needed to pray?" Abraham asked. "Did he tell him he was going to die tonight? Why did you tell the police that?"
"I was upset that he cut off my dope connection," she answered.
"Aren't you just making this up today," Abraham countered, accusing Johnna of conspiring with her husband and relatives to change her story. "Suddenly when you show up today it matches his (Paul's) version?"
"I do not appreciate being called a liar," she said, and claimed Toler's stabbing was an accident .She claimed her husband tried to give up peacefully but police officers knocked him to the ground and kicked him and mashed his face in the gravel and called him names.
She claimed Dennis Toler was taking unusual amounts of methadone at which point Abraham told her the Medical Examiner had testified that Toler only had a low therapeutic range of methadone in his system.
"There is no way!" she said.
Under cross examination Newcomb said she and her husband had a good life with their kids before she became addicted to drugs. She was on drugs for five years before Paul found out, and put her in rehab.
She said Paul did not know about her affair with Toler at first and that she lied about her statement to Williamson police about the methadone clinic stabbing incident to protect Denny Toler, who had a weapon on him that day. She lied to make Paul look bad. She claimed she told Paul that Denny had a gun and meant to use it on him. She said Toler had threatened Paul on an earlier occasion with a pellet gun, which he did not know wasn't real.
Carolyn Hopson testified that she was friends with Paul Newcomb who worked at the mines with her husband and that she saw him on March 31, when he came to her bar, Destinys and had a few drinks. She said Newcomb was not drunk but he was depressed and spoke about his concerns about his children and their safety. He also was concerned about the Sept. 30, 2005 incident at the methadone clinic when he cut Toler and that he might go to jail over it.
"He was upset about his kids, he was upset about his wife, he was hurt," Hopson said.
Newcomb asked her husband for a ride to Elk Creek as he did not want any trouble with police when he left the bar. She told Defense Attorney Michael Blevins that Newcomb was not a troublemaker or violent man and that she only saw him in the bar four or five times a year. The methadone clinic stabbing surprised her, she testified. Later, after his arrest she visited Newcomb at the jail where he seemed remorseful over what happened. Under redirection she told Prosecutor Brian Abraham that Newcomb's nickname in the mines was "Convict," but she did not know he had been convicted of unlawful wounding at one time. Abraham and Blevins questioned her about an incident where Toler broke the windows out of Newcomb's vehicle.
Harmon Hopson testified that he and Newcomb worked for the same mining company and he gave Newcomb a ride to Elk Creek so Newcomb could catch a ride with Randy Bobbitt to work. He said Newcomb was a good worker and did not have a reputation for violence. Hopson explained that miners often know each other by nicknames (some of which are not pleasant) and that he did not know how Newcomb wound up with the nickname "Convict." Hopson said at one point on April 1, Newcomb may have told him he was supposed to meet Johnna Newcomb.
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