Man Guilty Of Murder In Stabbing Jury Doesn’t Believe Story Of Self-Defense

If he had kept his mouth shut, Keith Studd might have gotten away with murder.

For more than a year, police were baffled by a fatal stabbing on a downtown Spokane sidewalk.

There were no suspects - until Studd suddenly came forward to claim responsibility.

“I wanted to get it taken care of,” Studd testified this week in Spokane County Superior Court. “It was bugging me.”

Studd said he knifed construction worker David Castle in self-defense during a two-minute street fight that erupted shortly after midnight on June 30, 1992.

A jury didn’t believe it, finding Studd guilty as charged of second-degree murder on Friday.

Already in prison for an unrelated attempted murder, he now faces another 21 years behind bars. Sentencing is set for Oct. 20.

To the victim’s relatives, the verdict ends three agonizing years of waiting for justice to be served.

“It tears your guts out,” said Castle’s brother Ed Douglas.

First, the crime was an unsolved mystery.

Then Studd surfaced and it was labeled justifiable homicide.

Finally, a self-proclaimed eyewitness emerged from the shadows, prompting the murder charge to be filed last January.

“It’s been a wild ride,” said Deputy Prosecutor Jack Driscoll.

The four-day trial hinged on whether jurors would believe Studd or his former jail cellmate, David Blocker.

Blocker, 19, testified that he was with Studd when the fight began near the corner of Pacific and Washington.

Castle was putting down his duffle bag when Studd punched him in the head, knocking him to the ground, Blocker said.

Before the dazed man could get up, Blocker said, Studd produced a knife with a 6-inch blade and stabbed Castle, 30, in the chest.

“It happened quick,” the witness said.

Blocker’s testimony was labeled “completely unbelievable” by defense attorney John Nollette.

Nollette cited numerous inconsistencies, most notably Blocker’s insistence that the fight occurred in the daytime.

Blocker made up the story in hopes of gaining favorable treatment in pending criminal cases, Nollette argued.

But Driscoll said Blocker - the only witness to the stabbing - really wanted protection from Studd, who had been making death threats.

“He’s tired of being threatened,” the prosecutor said. “All he’s getting out of this is being labeled a snitch.”

Studd told the jury that he and Castle traded insults while passing on the sidewalk that night, sparking a fistfight.

“He said he was going to kill me and made a move to get something out of his bag,” Studd said.

He said he reacted instinctively by drawing his knife and stabbing Castle.

“If he would have said, ‘That’s enough,’ I would have dropped it and left.”

Autopsy reports show Castle was intoxicated that night, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.16 percent.

After the stabbing, Studd said he fled Spokane by hopping a freight train. He “traded away” the knife.

Studd contacted police about the stabbing in the summer of 1993. He was about to be sent to prison for heaving a Molotov cocktail through an open window into a Spokane family’s apartment.

He is serving an 18-year prison sentence for attempted murder.

An eighth-grade dropout who, for the most part, has been living on his own since he was 12, Studd has a long criminal record, including convictions for car thefts, burglaries, attempted robbery and escape.

, DataTimes