Former Friend Testifies Against Molly Martel

The prosecution in the trial of accused murderer Molly Martel introduced four witnesses on Tuesday morning, including Anthony Santos, the ex-boyfriend of Stephanie Campbell, who was killed last Nov. 2 in Manchester.

Santos, who appeared agitated for much of the cross-examination, was on the stand for nearly two hours going over the events of the night Campbell, the mother of his two children, was killed.

Martel, who is pleading not guilty to second-degree murder charges in Campbell's death, is said by Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley to have fatally stabbed Campbell, a mother of three, following an altercation outside of 28 Dutton St. in Manchester on Nov. 2, 2010.

When police arrived on scene that night, Martel was not there, but witnesses told police about the argument between the women earlier in the night, and that Martel had returned shortly before Campbell lay bleeding to death on the sidewalk.

After an investigation, police put out an all-points bulletin for Martel, who had disappeared. According to police records, Martel was arrested at a hotel in upstate New York on Nov. 4, 2010, where she'd checked in under a false name.

According to WMUR Channel 9, the defense argued in its opening statement on Monday that Martel did not purposefully kill Campbell, but that it was Campbell who was in possession of the knife and the wounds were inflicted while Martel attempted to disarm her.

Martel is a former Merrimack resident. According to stories from the Nashua Telegraph last November, Martel was a standout softball pitcher for Merrimack during high school. Her former softball coach, Dick Bean, told the Telegraph he was shocked at the news of Martel's arrest.

Earlier Tuesday morning, two Manchester Police Officers, Mark Harrington and Richard Valenti, who were on scene that night, testified to what they saw and heard. Neither saw Martel in the vicinity of the crime scene, and Harrington, who was first on the scene and attempted to give aid to Campbell, said he did a canvas of the crime scene early on but found no weapon.

The first to testify Tuesday morning was Patricia Gage, who lived at 325 Concord St. at the time of Campbell's death. She testified that she witnessed the first argument of the night from a window on the third floor of her building and that a blonde woman standing near a gold car that looked like a Lincoln Continental was engaged in a screaming match with Campbell who was yelling from a second story window.

She said the blonde girl, who “seemed pretty angry,” told Campbell she'd be back.

Later, she said she heard another commotion and heard Campbell scream “That (expletive) stabbed me.”

Defense attorney Eric Wilson questioned why Gage, who was interviewed by police a year ago, never told police that Martel told Campbell she'd be back or mentioned that she heard Campbell scream about being stabbed, nor did she mention, until she met with prosecutors, that she saw the gold car in the neighborhood again that night.

Gage said the night was traumatizing and she may not have mentioned those things at the time, but Wilson said that according to records Gage never told police these things, even later when she remembered them, and that the first time these statements appear in the record are when she met with prosecutors in advance of this trial in September about 10 months after the incident.

“Yes, after seeing a woman choke on her own blood, yes, I did forget that night,” Gage said.

Defense attorney Chuck Keefe tried to show similar inconsistencies in testimony from that night when he cross-examined Santos later in the morning.

Santos' testimony was often confusing, sometimes emotional and it was paused several times for the attorneys from both the prosecution and defense to discuss the line of questioning with Judge Gillian Abramson.

Santos frequently responded to questions on the stand with “I don't know” or “I don't remember.” He got choked up and teary while talking about Campbell and he told Keefe his memory of that night, the timeline and the conversations he had on Nov. 2 and 3, were fuzzy due to a large amount of drugs he took following the news of Campbell's death.

Santos, who was arrested on Nov. 3 on a warrant for an unrelated charge of stalking Campbell, said he could recall very little of the interview he had with police due to the effect of drugs in his system. He often responded to questions from Keefe about his testimony that day saying that if that's what the transcripts and reports say, that's probably what he said, but he couldn't remember.

“Can we put any value on anything you told the police?” Keefe asked, suggesting if Santos' memory is so fuzzy from that night, if he was so hopped up on drugs, he was lying to police.

“You do what you will with it,” Santos replied.

Keefe supposed Santos could have been completely wrong about everything he told police that night, but Santos replied that he doubted that.

During Santos' testimony he told the court he'd been with Martel earlier in the night of Nov. 2 to pick up one of his sons from Campbell who then got into a screaming match from a second-story window at 28 Dutton St. with Martel, who was standing on the street.

Santos testified that Campbell told Martel she was going to tell Martel's boyfriend, Pete Santos (no relation to Anthony) that Martel was sleeping with Anthony Santos. He denied the veracity of Campbell's accusations, saying that he and Martel were only friends and knew each other through Martel's boyfriend.

Following the argument, Santos said he and Martel returned to her residence at 58 Massabesic St. where he and his son popped a movie into Martel's laptop and Martel changed and left to go pick up a friend, Jerry Turner, to run an errand in Massachusetts.

Santos said he was concerned Martel might be getting herself into trouble following the earlier argument with Campbell and called her to check in, and Martel said everything was fine. The next and last time he talked to her, he claimed was shortly after he started receiving calls from friends telling him that Campbell had been stabbed.

Though there's a lot he says he doesn't remember, he did remember talking to Martel on the phone after that, he said, though he wasn't sure when or for how long.

Phone records indicate he talked to Martel at 9:07 p.m., minutes after Campbell was stabbed, and that the call lasted nearly 10 minutes.

He said he could hear Turner in the background yelling over and over again that he was sorry.

According to Keefe, the transcript from Santos' interview with police from last November says Turner was yelling “it was self defense” during that phone call.

Santos said he does not recall that.

Santos told the court that despite the fact he is currently serving time for four felonies, he is not getting any sort of cooperation agreement or reward for testifying in this case

“Steph's my family I have motherless kids out there now and it's the right thing to do, absolutely,” Santos said. “And I'd do it again.”

The trial continues on Wednesday. Defense attorney Wilson said he expects the trial will last at least until next week, and would then be turned over to the jury for deliberation.