Jurors asked: Butcher-knife stabbing an act of passion or revenge?

Was a bullied Kathleen man driven in a moment of passion to plunge a butcher knife into the head and then the chest of his nephew, or was he drunk, mad and bent on revenge?

That’s the key question, as presented by prosecution and defense attorneys in closing arguments Thursday for a Houston County jury.

Jurors deliberated for nearly three hours Thursday in the trial of 49-year-old Leon Springer before recessing for the day. Deliberations are expected to resume Friday morning.

Springer is charged with malice and felony murder in the stabbing of 44-year-old Shaun Lawson of Macon in the early-morning hours of Sept. 27 last year at a family gathering in which both men had been drinking. Jurors are also considering the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter.

“It’s not murder,” said Springer’s attorney, Russell Walker of Perry. “It’s manslaughter.

“This story is just as much about the bullying as the stabbing.”

But lead prosecutor Dan Bibler argued that revenge plus alcohol equals murder.

“I’m killing him because I’m drunk and I’m mad,” Bibler characterized Springer’s motive for jurors. “And I just want to get back at him for what he’s done.”

Earlier Thursday, Springer told jurors that he snapped.

His nephew had a history of harassing and bullying him, Springer and others testified.

The night of his mother’s 90th birthday party at the Warner Robins Recreation Center on Watson Boulevard was no exception. Lawson had cut in on Springer while he was dancing, slapped him on the head when he walked by and cursed him within his hearing.

At the after-party that carried into the next morning at the West Houston Road home in Kathleen that Springer shared with his mother, the men had argued over a cup of liquor.

“I had came into the house and sat down in the recliner and I had a beer and a cup of vodka,” Springer told jurors. “He insisted on taking it out of my hand, telling me he was going to take my drink.

“I said, ‘I’ll pour it out before I give it to you.’ So that’s what I did,” Springer said.

Springer said he got a mop to clean up the mess.

“While I’m mopping, he stands on the mop telling me what he gonna do to me,” Springer said. Springer said Lawson threatened him.

Both Springer and Lawson left the house separately and later returned. It was now shortly before 3 a.m. Sept. 27 of last year.

“As I’m entering the house, Shaun come up behind me, pushed me, telling me he gonna kill me. He wanted me dead.”

Springer said that’s when he snapped.

“I went and got a butcher knife,” Springer said. “I didn’t look in the drawer to see what it was. I just grabbed something, and that’s what it was, and came back, and from then, I don’t know what happened. I blacked out.”

Mattie Williams, Springer’s mother and Lawson’s grandmother, testified earlier Thursday that Lawson often harassed Springer.

“I don’t know how he took it so long,” Williams said. “You beat on a dog and he’ll turn around and bite you.”

But Tonya Lawson earlier testified Wednesday that Lawson, who was her brother, had left the Kathleen home and then come back to the house to get his things when he was attacked by their uncle.

“He walked back to go get his bag and then my uncle ran out of the kitchen and stabbed him in his head and then he stabbed him in his chest,” she said.

Her testimony on the witness stand was often inconsistent with her written and video statements to authorities the morning of the stabbing. Lawson told jurors that she was traumatized by what she’d just witnessed and didn’t remember what all she had said to authorities, but she was confident that what she recalled on Wednesday was accurate.

This story was originally published October 27, 2016 at 2:05 PM with the headline "Jurors asked: Butcher-knife stabbing an act of passion or revenge?."