In the hours after her husband, Winston-Salem police Sgt. Howard Plouff, was shot, Joyce Plouff kept thinking that all she had to do was see him and hold his hand. If she could do that, everything would be all right.
But it wasn't, she said yesterday in Forsyth Superior Court. She was the first witness in the trial of Keith Antoine Carter, who is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her husband three years ago.
When she got to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, she tried to see her husband but couldn't because he was in surgery, she testified.
Hours later, the man she had been married to for more than 17 years, the man who was her high-school sweetheart, died, and when she finally saw his body, she hardly recognized him.
"It wasn't my bubbly, humorous sweet Howard, and he didn't grab my hand," Plouff said, her voice barely holding together as she wiped tears from her eyes.
In opening statements, Assistant District Attorney David Hall and Carter's attorney, David Freedman, gave different accounts of what happened in the early-morning hours of Feb. 23, 2007.
Fights broke out at the Red Rooster nightclub, which had been rented for a party for students from Winston-Salem State University, Hall said.
Carter was there that night, and at one point threw a bar stool, hitting another man, Hall said. A group of people then started beating up Carter, according to Hall.
A friend managed to get Carter out of the nightclub and tried to get him to leave, Hall said. But Carter was angry, and he went to his car and pulled out a 9 mm handgun he had under a seat. He then went to the passenger side, opened the glove compartment and grabbed a clip of ammunition, Hall said.
With the gun in his hand, Carter asked who wanted to fight him now, using an expletive, the prosecutor said.
Carter then fired seven times into the crowd. One bullet hit Plouff, striking his carotid artery and jugular vein, Hall said.
"He had the gun, and he was angry, and he was bent on revenge," Hall said of Carter.
Freedman, Carter's attorney, said that his client was a senior at WSSU with a 2.7 grade-point average. Carter was in good standing with the community and was able to legally purchase a 9 mm handgun at Apple Pawn Shop in downtown Winston-Salem, he said.
Carter had a drink that night before he went to the Red Rooster, and he did not have a gun when he went into the club, Freedman said, and in fact, none of the partygoers inside had firearms.
Freedman said that a bouncer at the nightclub, Joseph S. Hensley, was the one who brought guns into an explosive situation when he fired a pistol into the air outside the club in an attempt to break up fights that had spilled out into the parking lot.
The attempt backfired, and an already heated situation got worse, leading to other people getting guns out of their cars, Freedman said.
"Hensley, who had no business having a firearm, introduced a deadly weapon," he said.
Hensley later pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and discharging a firearm within city limits. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Freedman said that Carter voluntarily went to the Winston-Salem Police Department and told officers that he did fire his gun but that he shot into the air, never meaning to hurt anyone. Carter didn't even know anyone had been shot until afterward, the attorney said.
Two deputies with the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office who worked as off-duty security at the Red Rooster that night described a chaotic scene in testimony.
Deputy Rocky Joyner said that one fight involving several people broke out on the dance floor and that smaller fights were taking place all around the club. He and others had to use pepper spray to disperse the crowd and get them outside, he said.
Outside, it was worse, Joyner testified. He counted about 30 fights happening, and at one point someone hit him in the jaw.
Deputy James Finnegan said he could feel the tension inside the nightclub, and when the fights spilled outside, it was pure chaos.
"It was like a bench-clearing brawl," he said.
mhewlett@wsjournal.com
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