Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- Johnny Yow had been in Anchorage getting parts for his bulldozer and was driving home on Rampart Loop near Talkeetna when Donald Voorhis jumped out of the woods and leveled a rifle at him.

That's what Yow told a jury Wednesday morning from the witness stand at Voorhis' attempted-murder trial in Palmer Superior Court.

"I'm just trying to go home, Donald," is what Yow said he told Voorhis on that Sept. 6 evening in 2006.

"He fired the rifle and it just narrowly missed," said Yow, who is a heavy-equipment operator. "Then he chambered another." Yow said he started backing down the road as Voorhis chased him with the rifle still pointed in Yow's direction.

Asked by District Attorney Roman Kalytiak if he feared for his life, Yow said, "No doubt in my mind I would be shot and killed. I figured he wasn't going to quit."

Voorhis is charged with two counts of attempted murder during a three-day armed standoff with troopers. He also faces six assault counts and one each of violating conditions of release, resisting arrest and reckless endangerment.

Yow, the first witness called, said he didn't know Voorhis well, even though they lived only half a mile apart in a sparsely populated neighborhood about eight miles from the Talkeetna Spur Road.

Yow said he called 911 as he was backing out of danger and didn't get an answer. When finally he got enough distance from Voorhis, he called again and reached a dispatcher. Troopers arrived about 30 minutes later.

The Sept. 6 event wasn't the first time Yow and Voorhis had trouble. Voorhis fired shots over Yow's wife's head in October of 2005 as she stood outside their home having a smoke, Yow said.

SANITY NOT AN ISSUE

Attorneys sparred early Wednesday morning about whether a claim of mental illness would be used in Voorhis' defense.

During opening statements Tuesday afternoon, one of Voorhis' attorneys, Herman Walker, used phrases that insinuated Voorhis was not right in his head and delusional the day the standoff began.

Kalytiak said those phrases could be interpreted as a sign that Voorhis suffered from a mental deficiency and unless the defense could legally support a claim of mental incapacity, then the jury shouldn't hear references regarding Voorhis' sanity.

The defense, also represented by Lee de Grazia, filed paperwork before trial began that indicated there would be no claim of insanity, but Kalytiak wanted Superior Court Eric Smith to regulate how witnesses could be questioned on the subject because "I don't want to go through a guessing game" as to what tactic the defense would use.

In the end, Walker and de Grazia agreed to ask witnesses only about their observations and not their opinions regarding Voorhis' behavior when he confronted them with a rifle.

A ROUGH DAY

Another witness, David Davis, was building a cabin in the area on the day the trouble began and showing his brother, Ron, from Colorado around. He testified they were driving up Rampart Loop, a road they'd never been on before, when Voorhis jumped out in front of their pickup and aimed a rifle at them.

"He was yelling and screaming and pointing a rifle right at me, and then he pointed it at my brother," Davis said.

Davis said Voorhis ordered him out of his pickup and accused him of shooting holes in one his vehicles. Voorhis told him to stick his nose in the bullet hole of the windshield.

"I wasn't going to do that," Davis said in court. Eventually Voorhis told him to leave.

According to Davis, Voorhis said: "If you call the troopers, I'll shoot the troopers."

Davis said he did as he was told and waited until the following Monday, a day after the Sept. 8-10 standoff ended, before reporting the attack because he feared Voorhis would retaliate.

Find T.C. Mitchell at adn.com/contact/tcmitchell.

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