By Michele Chadwick
MODESTO, CA – Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Dawna Reeves presided over a jury trial Thursday for Spurgeon Bland, accused of allegedly stabbing someone in a fight on Aug. 19, 2021.
The alleged victim was the first witness to testify, explaining he ran from the residence in which the stabbing occurred to a convenience store nearby.
He testified that he was “yelling the entire time” but it was “not the safest neighborhood” and “a little past midnight.” No one responded to his calls for help, he said.
The second witness was Deputy Sheriff Jacob Rhon. who said he showed the victim a photo lineup at the hospital, around 4 a.m. Rhon said he had to “wake” the victim.
Rhon reported the victim said, “this kinda looks like him” and “this also kinda looks like him” when looking at the lineup images 1 and 2.
After Rhon testified, a worker who worked at a Quik Stop testified about a woman entering the store and asking that he call the police.
He made a call to 911 and relayed the information that “there is woman claiming there is a man that stabbed a guy on the Westside about 30 minutes ago… [his name is] Spurgeon Bland…she doesn’t know what to do (and that) he’s looking at her…[he’s wearing] a black tee shirt and blue jeans…she doesn’t know [if he still has the knife on him].”
The woman from the Quik Stop then testified to her account of that night, and noted that the accused, Bland, was her ex-boyfriend.
When asked why she asked for the police to come on that night, she replied, “I don’t know” then “I don’t remember.”
On that night, she showed the police her phone which included a Facebook message from Bland, under the nickname Spike, which read “babe I’m going to prison… I got in a fight and I think I killed someone.”
She testified that she “didn’t know if that was really him or not… I don’t know if that was Spike or not… sometimes people lose their phone, sometimes people go through their messages. He’s got a lot of haters.”
She testified in a preliminary hearing that “he called for me and told me to meet him there,” then she drove to meet him.
When asked about speaking to law enforcement that night she said, “I made a whole bunch of lies up because I didn’t want to get caught by my other boyfriend.”
The court went to recess and she was unable to finish her testimony until the next court date.
However, the court did hear a very short testimony from a doctor, Ilan Kaye, who attended to the victim on the night of the incident.
Kaye testified he treated him in the emergency room on the day of August 19 2021. He noted that “there was a laceration on his arm, two actually. Then there was a laceration under his chin and to the right part of his back.”
The jury trial will reconvene Friday in Stanislaus Superior Court Dept 1 at 10:15 a.m.
