WOODLAND — It was the yelling that first caught Kaitlyn Mattos’ attention.
“I’m going get you, motherf—–. It’s your time,” Kelly Choate warned Jeffrey Lemus on the patio of Kenny’s Bar & Grill in Woodland, Mattos recalled Wednesday in Yolo Superior Court. Lemus, in response, “threw his arms up like, ‘I’m right here.’ ”
Moments later, when Lemus angrily marched into the East Street bar, “at that point I knew it wasn’t going to be good,” Mattos testified. “And then it all just happened.”
As Mattos, her two friends and dozens inside the bar looked on in horror, Lemus unfolded a large knife and thrust it at Choate’s chest, opening a wound that pierced his heart and lung and severed a rib.
“I instantly thought about the victim’s kids. I don’t even know if he had kids,” Mattos said, her comment causing Choate’s relatives to weep in the courtroom audience. “It haunts me to this day. It was horrible. Horrible.”
Mattos was among the first witnesses to testify this week about the Dec. 5, 2015, stabbing that left the 53-year-old Choate dead and Lemus, 55, on trial for murder.
The deadly confrontation was the latest in an ongoing dispute between the two Woodland men that began when Choate allegedly stole Lemus’ bicycle, Deputy District Attorney Kyle Hasapes told the six-man, six-woman jury during opening statements Wednesday.
“There was a history of bad blood, of verbal arguments. They didn’t like each other,” Hasapes said. But when Choate offended Lemus in front of Mattos and her friends, Lemus “decided that he was going to kill Mr. Choate.”
The prosecutor is alleging that Lemus’ actions amounted to first-degree murder, that he premeditated the stabbing with malice aforethought when he walked into the bar. Lemus, however, claims he acted in self-defense.
As video of the Kenny’s bar scene that night played on a large screen behind him, Hasapes noted that Lemus gestured toward Choate as he walked toward the men’s bathroom. He alleged that Lemus intended to kill him there, but was thwarted when Choate didn’t take the bait.
Minutes later, a departing Lemus again gestured toward Choate, who rushed toward the defendant in the bar doorway. The video showed Lemus striking Choate in the head with the closed folding knife, then stabbing him.
“With this knife,” Hasapes said, opening with an audible “click” the alleged murder weapon — roughly the size of a large television remote when closed, nearly doubled in size when extended.
In the video, the injured Choate stumbled backwards, clutching at his chest as he reached for the fishing knife he wore sheathed on his waistband. He collapsed to the ground within seconds, “bleeding like a water hose,” Hasapes said.
Lemus’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Ron Johnson, said there’s no question his client committed the fatal stabbing. But he disputed the prosecution’s claims that Lemus planned out the act.
“These decisions are made in a split second,” Johnson said in his opening remarks. He noted that both Lemus and Choate had been drinking that night, and that Choate had “a significant amount” of methamphetamine in his system.
Although Choate never brandished his fishing knife, “he’s repeatedly threatened people with this knife. Mr. Lemus knows this about Mr. Choate,” Johnson said.
And although witnesses are expected to testify that Lemus did not appear scared or threatened prior to the stabbing, Choate’s initial words to him — “It’s your time” — should be taken into account, Johnson said.
“You don’t ignore something like that,” Johnson said. “It’s not a verbal altercation. It’s a threat directed at Mr. Lemus by a man carrying a knife.”
The defense attorney also contends that Lemus was trying to leave the bar when Choate rushed toward him at the doorway, his fists in fighting position, and that’s when Lemus raised the knife to protect himself.
“That’s the initial aggressor. That’s the person that started the fight,” Johnson said of Choate. “You can defend yourself before the first blow.”
Testimony continues today in Judge David Reed’s courtroom. The trial is expected to last about two weeks.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene