Guilty plea in stabbing death
Homeless man admits killing Pottstown man during fight
NORRISTOWN » A homeless man choked back tears and expressed remorse as he admitted to fatally stabbing another man during a fight on High Street in Pottstown.
“I regret every minute of it,” Steven Holmes, 54, told Montgomery County Judge Gary S. Silow on Monday.
Holmes pleaded guilty to a felony charge of voluntary manslaughter in connection with the July 30, 2017, fatal stabbing of Diamonde “Clutch” Stone, 35, of Pottstown.
Silow, who accepted a plea agreement in the matter, immediately sentenced Holmes to 10 to 20 years in state prison on the charge.
Under state law, a person commits voluntary manslaughter when he kills another individual without lawful justification at a time when he is acting under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation.
Holmes told the judge he has a 6th grade education, had been homeless for the last several years, suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and had been hospitalized several times during his lifetime for
mental health issues.
“I have severe flashbacks from childhood on. They cannot cure them. I do have suicidal and homicidal tendencies,” Holmes admitted.
Holmes also admitted to having a drug problem.
“It’s anything I can get my hands on,” Holmes said.
Under questioning by his defense lawyer Carrie Allman, Holmes said his limited education did not prevent him from knowingly agreeing to the plea agreement.
As part of the plea agreement more serious charges of first- and third-degree murder were dismissed against Holmes. If convicted of first-degree murder, an intentional killing, Holmes would have faced a life prison sentence. A conviction of third-degree murder would have carried a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.
Judge Silow recommended that Holmes be incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Laurel Highlands in Somerset County, which provides programs and treatment for older inmates with medical and mental health issues.
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Daniels sought a prison term for Holmes.
“It essentially is a crime that occurred during a heated argument or a heat of passion where a fistfight was going on and Mr. Holmes decided to take the ultimate step and stab the victim in his chest,” Daniels said on Monday. “He did show some remorse today and apologized for what occurred that evening. Unfortunately, all of his apologies will not bring back our victim.”
An investigation began about 10:30 p.m. July 30, when Pottstown police responded to the 300 block of High Street for a report of a fight and discovered Stone, bleeding heavily from an apparent stab wound to the chest, lying on the sidewalk, according to the affidavit of probable cause filed by county Detective Todd Richard and Pottstown Detective Thomas Leahan.
Stone was provided immediate medical care but was later pronounced dead at Pottstown Hospital.
An autopsy determined that Stone died as a result of a stab wound to the chest with injuries to the heart, according to the criminal complaint.
Detectives interviewed witnesses, including a neighbor whose apartment overlooked the crime scene. That witness told police that he heard screaming coming from outside and when he looked, he observed four people including, “a black male who was kneeling on top of and beating a white male who was lying face up on the ground,” according to court documents.
The witness told detectives that at one point the white male, later identified as Holmes, made a movement where his hand went “straight up to the black male, and right after that, the black male got up, holding his chest,” according to the criminal complaint.
“According to (the witness) when the white male stood up he had something shiny in his hand,” Richard and Leahan wrote in the arrest affidavit.
The black male, later identified as Stone, was bleeding heavily and walked across the street, held onto a wall and then collapsed, the witness said, according to court papers. The two other individuals, a man and a woman observed by the witness, had been trying to separate Holmes and Stone during the altercation, according to court papers.
A second witness told detectives that she had invited Holmes and his girlfriend into her East High Street home to stay overnight on the night of July 29. The witness recalled hearing a disturbance outside on July 30 and that a short time later Holmes arrived at her home with blood on his arm. Holmes allegedly stated that he had gotten into an argument about $20 with “Clutch” and had stabbed “Clutch” in the arm, according to witness accounts contained in the criminal complaint.
After learning that Stone had died, the witness told Holmes to talk to the police, according to the affidavit of probable cause, but Holmes left the woman’s residence with his girlfriend.
Detectives testified at a preliminary hearing in September that Holmes admitted to the crime on Aug. 22 after he was apprehended in Philadelphia where he had fled after the stabbing.
Holmes allegedly said Stone had struck him first and that the fight they were having was about crystal meth, an illegal narcotic, according to previous testimony.
Holmes also allegedly told detectives that Stone had been saying cruel things about his girlfriend and that a second male was also striking him during his altercation with Stone, according to previous testimony.