Trial begins for man accused of stabbing death

A murder trial for a Madera man started Monday in Clearfield County Court.

Last March, Joshua Allen Sahm, 30 of Blandburg, was allegedly stabbed by Johnathan Blair Maines of Madera at a residence referred to by Clearfield County District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr. as a “drug house.”

Ashley Storm, 25, testified Monday that she and several other people were living at the apartment on Main Street in Coalport. The night before the assault, they were up partying all night and using methamphetamine.

Sahm was one of her friends who joined the group for the first time that night. Although Sahm knew a few of the others there, she said Maines did not know Sahm.

The next morning, she, Sahm and Maines were in her bedroom watching a movie. At one point she got up and went to the bathroom. From there, she heard someone say “so you are going to kill me, huh?” from the bedroom.

When she came out into the hallway, Sahm was there bleeding with a knife in his back.

Maines ran out of the bedroom, saying, “Babe we gotta go,” she testified. They went down a back staircase into the kitchen where they were approached by Keith Pinter, who had been in the living room.

The trio went outside. Because Pinter had active warrants, he left. Storm and Maines went back into the apartment as Storm looked for a phone to call 911.

After they went upstairs, they discovered Sahm had gone down the front staircase and collapsed in a puddle of blood.

During all of this, she said she kept asking Maines what he did, but he would only reply “I don’t know.”

Maines went back downstairs where he washed up and changed out of his bloody camouflage pants, she said. He then hid these pants among some other clothes.

Storm found Sahm’s phone and was able to call 911.

When the ambulance arrived, Storm was outside but Maines had left the scene. Sahm died in transport to the hospital.

Under questioning by Shaw, Storm admitted that Maines might have been jealous of her flirting with Sahm.

According to a previous report, Maines was apprehended at a residence near Shawville on March 21.

In his opening statements, defense attorney Joshua Maines pointed out that all of the witnesses were drug users and the jury should watch them closely to assess their creditability.

Storm and Johnathan Maines had only been dating a few weeks at the time of the assault and was the new one among them, he noted. Attorney Maines claimed this is the reason Johnathan Maines was being accused of the murder.

Surveillance video from the Madera Moose will prove that there was another person at the home and he is the one seen outside talking with Pinter and Storm, and not Johnathan Maines, said Attorney Maines.

He also claimed that DNA from the pants came from Johnathan Maines and another individual.

The trial is scheduled to last five days, but Shaw said he thought it might be finish as early as Wednesday.