Murder by Duel: Welch, West Virginia, 2009

Historians are sometimes called to the witness box in civil trials, chiefly regarding questions of racial discrimination, historic preservation, broken Indian treaties, and civil rights cases. Seldom, however, does a member of our profession serve as an expert witness in a criminal trial. I, however, did just this in the case of State v. Simpson in January 2009. I may be the only historian ever to take that role in a murder case.¹

Serving as a witness leads the historian to unexpected and perhaps troubling discoveries. In this case, the distance between the cloistered world of letters and the culture of an Appalachian region cannot be measured in miles alone. Welch, West Virginia, the seat of McDowell County, was once a thriving coal-mining center. The town sits in a steep ravine. Wood-frame houses perch precariously on either side. It is a rough, hardscrabble part of the country, far from the life that many of us in the academic line would ever know. When my wife Anne and I checked out of the comfortable Count Giuli Motel, Jack, the manager, apprised us of local history. The Hatfields and McCoys, he reminded us, had battled each other in the 1880s across the nearby Kentucky border. During the 1920–21 coal strike Constable Sid Hatfield had been killed. Detectives hired by coal mine operators blamed the Matewan policeman for the deaths of some of their colleagues and sought revenge. They shot Hatfield just across the street from a second courthouse where the State v. Simpson trial was located. A film, Matewan, tells the story. In its prime McDowell County boasted 100,000 residents, now reduced to 5,000. The coal seams gradually played out.

In late April 2008 an e-mail from Lacy Wright, Jr.’s law office in Welch asked me to assist the defense of his client, Steve Simpson. I readily accepted. Soon afterward, a packet of court documents arrived. They included the arresting officer’s report, the witnesses’ statements, and photographs of the crime scene.

The circumstances were these. Standing near a gravel road in Gilliam Bottom, not far from Welch, at about 4:30 in the afternoon on April 20, 2008, Stephen Bryant Simpson, 49, shouted in fury and indignation at a passing ATV. Dana Martin, 41, was speeding at about 50 mph in a 15 mph zone. Children were playing along the roadside. Moreover, Martin’s vehicle was also spraying Simpson’s parent’s car with showers of paint-scarring stones. Warning him to stop for the sake of the kids, Simpson got in his truck and tried to immobilize Martin’s four-wheeler against a chain fence. Martin leapt angrily from his vehicle. He struck Simpson with his volunteer fire department cell phone. Simpson, who has a game leg, staggered off. But Martin pinned him against a fence. He grabbed Simpson’s crutch and tried to beat him with it. The fracas drew other onlookers to the unfolding drama. At some point, the pair broke apart. As Martin prepared to leave for home, he shouted that he would be back, and “I ain’t gonna be empty-handed.”

Simpson went up the road to retrieve a Rossi revolver with .357 bullets in the chamber. He then headed back to Gilliam Bottom. As promised, Martin soon materialized, armed with a Sig Arms Mauser semi-automatic .45 caliber weapon. Almost immediately he fired into Simpson’s pickup. He blew out the windshield and back window. Bullets caromed around the inside of the cab. Robert Green, Simpson’s coworker, was in the vehicle next to Simpson. Both jumped out unharmed. As Martin advanced, Simpson fired back but without success. Then, gaining a better view, he struck Martin in the left chest. The impact spun him around. A second shot entered Martin’s lower back. He fell across the hood of Simpson’s pickup and slid to the ground. Despite some witnesses’ attempts of CPR, he was dead before an ambulance appeared.

Ordinarily, in such cases of “mutual combat,” or “affray” to adopt legal terms, the survivor is subject to indictment for second-degree murder or, given...