Prosecutors said Monday that Gary L. Middleton Sr. killed Douglas A. Knight “in cold blood” when the unarmed Knight approached him in the parking lot of a Quilcene motel in April.
Defense attorneys said the 61-year-old defendant fired at Knight in self-defense after he thought Knight was about to lunge at him and harm the battered wife Middleton and his family had been helping to protect for the past several days.
Two diverse accounts of the April 28 shooting emerged in the opening statements of Middleton’s first-degree murder trial that began Monday in Jefferson County Superior Court in Port Townsend.
Middleton, 61, is charged with shooting Knight, 45, to death outside the Maple Grove Motel, 61 Maple Grove Road, Quilcene, after he apparently intervened in a domestic violence situation between Knight and Knight’s wife, Donna.
Middleton faces a maximum term of life in prison if convicted of the charge.
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The rest of this story appears in the Tuesday Peninsula Daily News Jefferson County edition. Click on “Subscribe” to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.