Good deed cost man his life, jury is told

RALEIGH -- Demetric "Frank" Horton died trying to save a woman from being assaulted by her boyfriend, a Wake prosecutor said Monday as a murder trial began in the Wake County Courthouse.

"He was attempting to be a good Samaritan," said Christy Joyce, one of two Wake assistant district attorneys handling the case.

Horton was shot once in the head and killed Jan. 21 when he tried to stop Jamie Antwon Mitchell, 29, from strangling Mitchell's girlfriend as the couple fought in the front yard of a Craig Drive mobile home outside of Apex.

Mitchell is charged with first-degree murder and could be sentenced to life in prison, if a jury decides to convict him. The jury could also opt to find Mitchell not guilty, or convict him of a lesser charge of second-degree murder or manslaughter.

Mitchell has pleaded not guilty. His defense attorney George Kelly suggested that the killing was not a premeditated event.

"The issue is not whether [Mitchell] shot the man," Kelly said. "The issue is what the degree of the crime was."

The trial will continue throughout the week.

Horton, 31 died less than a half-mile away from the home where he lived with his wife, Paula, and their sons Demar, now 7, and Tom, 5. He worked as a quality control specialist for Best Lab Deals, Inc., in Garner at the time of his death.

When Horton and several friends arrived at the mobile home during the early morning hours, they saw Mitchell holding his girlfriend on the ground with both hands around her neck, strangling her. The men yelled at Mitchell to stop, Joyce said.

Mitchell eventually did and Horton told her to go inside the mobile home, Joyce said.

That's when Mitchell turned to Horton and said, " 'I don't get in your business with your wife, you don't need to get in my business,' " Joyce told jurors.

Mitchell then slapped Horton and shot him in the forehead within minutes, killing the young father, Joyce said. Mitchell fled the area and wasn't arrested until more than a month later in New York.

His cousin Tawanda Page attended Monday's court proceedings. She said that Horton and Mitchell grew up in the same area and that the killing had been difficult for everyone in the close-knit neighborhood filled with members of both men's families.

"It was just an accident," Page said. "We all grew up from children on up.

"We're going through it too," she said.