Store cameras show fatal stabbing on day 2 of Raleigh convenience store murder trial
Jurors in the murder trial of a downtown Raleigh convenience store owner saw security footage Thursday of the fatal encounter between the shop owner and the man he believed was stealing a bottle of Gatorade.
Taiseer Zarka, 61, is charged with second-degree murder in the April 6, 2023, stabbing death of Mark Thomas Garrity Jr., 27, of Calabash.
Garrity bled out from three stab wounds, including one to the heart, as a teenager recorded the encounter on her cellphone and a bartender from The Raleigh Times tried to save his life, jurors previously heard Wednesday.
Zarka has claimed self-defense. The prosecution says he overreacted.
Surveillance footage and testimony Thursday focused on the moments during and after the altercation.
Eileen Einhorn, a former crime scene investigator with the Wake City-County Bureau of Investigation (now the Wake County Bureau of Forensic Services), testified it appeared Zarka tried to mop up the blood throughout his store. Zarka would later tell detectives he mopped the floor because new customers were arriving and stepping in the blood.
Evidence Thursday also showed Zarka’s injuries from the encounter. Though he said Garrity had punched him multiple times, including in the head, photographs by an investigator show Zarka only sustained two small cuts, one to his right thumb and one to his left ring finger, both of which he had bandaged in the minutes after the encounter.
Shock in initial interview
Zarka spent eight-and-a-half hours in a Raleigh Police Department interview room after the stabbing. .
“Everything was like a dream,” he told lead investigator Detective Eric Heflin. “The whole thing is like the blink of an eye.”
Zarka said he and an employee saw Garrity steal drinks. When Zarka went to confront Garrity, he told him he could have the drink for free if he’d admit stealing it, he recalled. Zarka said Garrity screamed obscenities at him and threatened to kill him and the other employee with a pistol.
That’s when Zarka became determined to get him out of the store, but he wanted Garrity to leave his bag behind in case there was a weapon inside, he told the detective.
“Then he starts punching, he starts hitting me,” Zarka said in the video. “I can punch back. But then he reaches into his back pocket — I’m not taking no chances with anybody. That’s it.”
Believing Garrity was reaching for a weapon, Zarka stabbed him, he said.
Toward the end of his story, Zarka told Heflin he’d grown tired of the crime in downtown Raleigh.
“Raleigh downtown is changing, becoming crazy. For the past four years, I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “It’s now becoming the Mecca of every drug addict or homeless [person] coming to our streets.”
In fact, Zarka said, he had recently been arrested for defending himself with his knife when six men attacked him in his store, but a judge dismissed the case.
Hours later, as Heflin prepared to let Zarka go, he informed him of Garrity’s death. Zarka appeared shocked, saying, “What do you mean ‘passed away’?”
Their conversation proceeded as follows:
Heflin: The guy that you got into the altercation with, he died.
Zarka: He died? Because of what?
Heflin: Well, you saw how much he was bleeding, right?
Zarka: You’re serious. [exhales]
Heflin: That’s why we’re looking into it so seriously and everything’s being followed up on as thoroughly as possible, but yeah, unfortunately, he didn’t make it.
Zarka: Is it because of whatever — because of the cut?
Heflin: Yeah.
Zarka: OK.
Heflin: Yeah, so. But we heard your side of things. We weren’t able to hear his side of things because he wasn’t really able to talk by the time officers got out there.
Zarka: I am sorry to hear that. He’s a human being. Doesn’t matter, good or bad, he’s still a human being.
Zarka later asked if Garrity was on drugs; Heflin told him he didn’t know. A toxicology report later found that Garrity had cocaine and fentanyl in his system at the time of his death.
Throughout the interview, Zarka only referenced stabbing Garrity once, but surveillance footage from shows him making multiple stabbing or swinging motions with the knife during the scuffle.
Heflin testified he didn’t believe the surveillance footage aligned with Zarka’s account of the events, noting that Garrity is never seen reaching for his back pocket on camera and Zarka never puts his knife back in his pocket during the encounter, contrary to his interview statements.
Testimony will resume at 9:30 a.m. Friday at the Wake County Justice Center.
This story was originally published December 12, 2024 at 7:43 PM.
