Defendant in N.C. murder says victim threatened her child

CAMDEN

On trial in the killing of a Camden County man, Elizabeth King testified Wednesday that he had threatened her and her family and she didn't know what else to do.

King, 54, is charged with first degree murder in the death of Robert "Bobby" Mansfield, 61, whose body was found in April 2006 in a remote Camden farm field stabbed and badly beaten.

"He told me he was going to take the life of my youngest child," King told the jury Wednesday. "I had to do something. I couldn't live this way."

She said that on the night of April 11, 2006, she and her son, Scott Daniel, talked at the kitchen table before getting a knife and baseball bat and driving from her home in Edenton to Mansfield's home in Camden County.

Earlier Wednesday, Daniel, now 19, recounted what King said before they drove to meet Mansfield.

"She said, 'Do you think we'd go to hell if we took him out?' "

But King testified that they did not plan to kill Mansfield.

After leaving Edenton about 11:30 p.m., King called Mansfield to say she was picking him up as she had on other occasions, she testified. Mansfield did not have a driver's license.

Just before arriving, King and Daniel stopped, and Daniel got into the trunk with the baseball bat, she said. The knife was hidden under the console between the front seats of the 1999 Grand Marquis she was driving, King testified.

King said she and Mansfield briefly stopped to smoke drugs before going to a remote place on Hales Lake Road about 1 a.m. on April 12.

When Mansfield got out of the car, King placed the knife on the passenger seat, popped the trunk and got out a blanket for them to sit on, she said. As she spread the blanket on the ground, Daniel got out of the trunk, bat in hand, and confronted Mansfield, she said.

King said she turned to see Mansfield approaching her son as Daniel called for help. She grabbed the knife from the passenger seat, walked up behind Mansfield and stabbed him in the back, she said, holding back tears.

When he turned toward her, she screamed and ran, she said, and Daniel struck him in the back of the head with the bat. Mansfield fell, but with the knife in his back and having suffered a blow to the head, he was still able to throw dirt in Daniel's face and lunged again, according to Daniel's earlier testimony. Daniel struck him again, knocking him down, and then struck him several more times, he said.

Mansfield had a history of abusing women and using drugs, according to testimony from King, Daniel and others.

King and Mansfield had a rocky relationship after beginning to date in 2004 and he had beaten her just four days before he died, King said. He was charged with assault. Mansfield had served time in prison and was known to be proficient in martial arts, according to testimony.

In 2001, he was arrested by Camden County deputies as he was walking down a road, drunk and carrying a shotgun in his hand, on his way to the home of a police officer he believed had planted drugs on him many years earlier, according to testimony. He said he was going to kill him, two law enforcement officers testified.

Daniel pleaded guilty last year to second degree murder in exchange for testifying against his mother.

Although the knife wound was serious, Mansfield was killed by blows to the head, according to testimony by Dr. M.G.F. Gilliland, an expert in forensic pathology.

District Attorney Frank Parrish ended the state's case Wednesday. Later, King testified as part of her defense presented by public defender Andrew Womble.

The trial continues today.

 Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com