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Harnett deputies recount scene of Griggs shooting as civil trial continues

Deputies with the Harnett County Sheriff's Office took the stand Monday in the wrongful death suit against a Harnett County pastor, describing the scene shortly after he shot and killed his son-in-law in 2013.

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By
Tyler Dukes
, WRAL investigative reporter

Deputies with the Harnett County Sheriff's Office took the stand Monday in the wrongful death suit against a Harnett County pastor, describing the scene shortly after he shot and killed his son-in-law in 2013.

The Rev. Pat Chisenhall was never charged in the case, and said he feared for his life when he shot 23-year-old Christian Griggs as he was attempting to break into Chisenhall's Angier home through a window. Griggs' parents dispute those claims, saying he arrived at the Chisenhall house to pick up his 4-year-old daughter for scheduled visitation. They filed a lawsuit against Chisenhall in 2015.

An autopsy showed Griggs was shot six times – once in the stomach, once in the shoulder and four times in the back – with a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle.

The case was the subject of an investigative series published and aired by WRAL News in November.
Deputy Wayne McLamb, Lt. Travis Daggett and Detective David Hildreth all arrived at Chisenhall's home on NC Highway 210 in Angier just after 11 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2013.

McLamb told the Harnett County jury Monday he immediately noticed the double-hung window next to the front door caved in, and saw Griggs' father, Anthony Griggs, on the porch where he found his son.

"He said something to the effect of, 'Oh, Christian, what have you done now?'" McLamb said.

On cross-examination, McLamb acknowledged that he hadn't included the comment in his incident report. And although he didn't remember what Anthony Griggs said verbatim, he said he had a clear recollection of him saying it.

Daggett, a patrol sergeant at the time, said he remembered a similar comment, too, but didn't note it in his own supplemental incident report.

Lawyers question details of shooting scene

Both members of the sheriff's office also noted that according to the crime scene log, Chisenhall's son, Patrick Chisenhall Jr., was on the scene twice after it was secured by officers. Patrick Chisenhall Jr. is a state correctional officer and a volunteer with Angier Fire and Rescue.

McLamb and Daggett said anybody entering a crime scene who wasn't law enforcement would, by sheriff's office policy, need to be escorted. But they didn't remember who escorted Chisenhall in this case, and it wasn't noted in the crime scene log.

"Are you aware that Pat Chisenhall Jr. entered the active crime scene twice?" Rebecca Ugolick, an attorney for the Griggs family, asked Daggett on the stand.

"I was not aware of that," Daggett said.

"Are you aware that he entered the crime scene by walking around the house and jumping the fence?"

"I was not aware of that."

One of the central questions in the case has remained investigators' inability to find three of the six shell casings from the shooting. Three shell casings from Chisenhall's Winchester rifle were located close together behind a chair in the living room.

Daggett, however, said he remembered seeing two shell casings closer to the middle of the room when he arrived, separated by maybe a few feet.

He said he wasn't aware if investigators ever photographed or found those shell casings, and he said the only time they should have been moved is when they were collected by crime scene investigators.

After Hildreth took the stand, the Harnett County detective said it's not unusual to have cases where investigators can't find every shell casing.

But they looked.

Deputies even obtained a second search warrant for the outside of the home, Hildreth said, where investigators used a metal detector and searched through grass and bushes with their hands on the hunt for evidence, including the missing shell casings.

Hildreth said he didn't see shell casings like those described by Daggett in the middle of the floor, and said he didn't believe anyone moved them.

The investigation into Griggs' shooting, he said, was treated just like any other investigation performed by the Harnett County Sheriff's Office.

Ugolick, however, challenged investigators' conclusions about how the shooting took place. She pointed to enlarged crime scene photos of Chisenhall's living room that showed the blinds and curtains drawn over the window Chisenhall said Christian Griggs was trying to enter when he opened fire.

"Do you agree it's a physical impossibility to shoot someone through closed blinds and curtains without leaving bullet holes?" Ugolick asked.

"Yes ma'am," Hildreth responded.

Chisenhall's early interview recounts shooting

Hildreth, who for a time served as the case's lead investigator, explained to jurors that he separated and interviewed a shaken and distraught Chisenhall and his daughter at the scene. Chisenhall also traveled to the sheriff's office hours after the shooting for a videotaped interview with Hildreth, who watched the footage in court.

Chisenhall told the detective then that Christian Griggs had arrived at the house hostile and demanding to see his wife and their daughter. Chisenhall called 911, and after he retreated inside the house with his daughter Katie, he said they both struggled to close and latch the door with Griggs on the other side.

Seconds later, he said, the glass of the front window shattered.

"It stunned me," Chisenhall said.

He told the detective in the 2013 interview that Griggs had threatened to kill them and was halfway through the window when Chisenhall retrieved his rifle. He began firing at Griggs, who seemed shocked as he fell back through window onto the porch.

"I just kept shooting," Chisenhall said. "I don't know how many times."

He said both he and his daughter were terrified. Although he said he hadn't witnessed any domestic violence in Christian and Katie Griggs' on- and off-again relationship, he knew police had been called several times to intervene.

Chisenhall also told the detective hours after the shooting that he had to defuse a situation where he found a despondent Griggs sitting in the woods behind the pastor's property with a weapon, talking about murder suicide. Chisenhall took the weapon, but returned it later after Griggs said he was doing better.

He said he tried to treat his son-in-law like family and tried hard to make the relationship work. They had even tried, unsuccessfully, to take out a restraining order before the shooting, he said.

"I hate it," Chisenhall said of the incident. "But I don't know what would have happened."

On the stand, Hildreth described the pastor as much calmer during the interview than he had been earlier in the day at the scene.

Last week saw a similar interview with Chisenhall, who demonstrated what happened for investigators on video days after the shooting. The Griggs family's lawyer played that video for the jury with Chisenhall on the stand.

But the pastor told the jury last week he couldn't remember the details of the shooting following a subsequent diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. He said he did remember that his son-in-law was in a rage that made him fearful of his life and the life of his daughter at the time.
Associate Chief Medical Examiner Lauren Scott, who performed the autopsy on Griggs, also testified last week. She said that based on the trajectory of the bullets fired into Griggs' back, the upper half of his body would have been parallel to the ground, meaning that he was likely either bent or prone.

The civil trial is expected to last through early this week.

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