Second trial gets green light

A 49-year-old Pennslyvania man could once again face a jury trial on three felony counts stemming from the July 2022 shooting of Sampson County Sheriff’s deputy Caitlin Emanuel.

District Attorney Ernie Lee, who represents the 5th Prosecutorial District, confirmed that Michael Walthall will be re-tried on charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, assault on a law enforcement officer inflicting serious bodily injury and assault with a firearm on a law enforcement officer.

“I have met with Deputy Emanuel, assistant district attorneys Robert Thigpen and Jennifer Barnes, as well as Sheriff Jimmy Thornton,” Lee noted. “We plan to place this back on the calendar for another trial.”

Lee said after looking at the court calendar, he believed the case would probably be docketed for spring 2025.

Thornton said he was glad a decision to retry had been made.

“I’m grateful this is moving forward,” the sheriff said, stressing that trying such a case places those on the jury in a tough position.

Everyone, the sheriff said, was looking for justice for the deputy who was just out doing her job.

“She could have been killed, but by God’s grace that didn’t happen,” Thornton asserted.

A 7-man, 5-woman jury could not decide Walthall’s guilt or innocence on three of five charges in late October relating to Emanuel’s attack. The jury, following four days of testimony, found Walthall guilty on two of the five offenses — assault by strangulation and larceny of a firearm — but deadlocked 11-1 on the other three .

Superior Court Judge Greg Bell continued sentencing on those two charges until a later date.

The case against Walthall stems from an incident that took place in the early morning hours of July 23, 2022 on Hayne Stretch Road, where Emanuel and Deputy Tyler Spell had gone to investigate the larceny of a motor vehicle.

In her October testimony to the jury, Emanuel recounted her 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift on July 22 to July 23, 2022, saying it started out routinely as she covered the zone areas of Roseboro, Salemburg and Autryville while Sepll was assigned to the Roseboro city limits in a contract arrangement with that town.

She detailed how things unfolded that night, offering that she discovered the vehicle, drove a little farther down the road to search for potential suspects and then came back to the area where the stolen vehicle had been located.

Emanuel, sometimes emotional, told the jury that a man, later identified as Walthall, waved her down. She explained that Walthall told her, and later Spell, that a suspect ran away from the vehicle, and he admonished Spell “if you go now, you can catch him,” which Spell did.

The deputy said Walthall told her he lived across the street and she asked him to go get a form of ID. He left, she said, but came back. That is when Emanuel said the attack occurred, followed by the shooting.

Detailing what defense attorney Amos G. Tyndall called a 12-second incident, Emanuel said when she asked to see the ID Walthall left the scene to retrieve, “that’s when he covered my whole face with his gi-normous hand and slammed me to the ground.”

A struggle ensued with Walthall, testimony showed, putting the deputy in a chokehold, holding her down with his leg. “I felt like I had an elephant on my chest,” she testified. “I tried to fight back but it was like fighting a bear.”

Audio evidence in the case, which was played for the jury, detailed the screams of a woman (Emanuel) followed by the unmistakable pops of gunfire, seven in total, and then more screams.

The prosecution contended that Walthall fired the shots that injured Emanuel, causing a broken leg and damage to her heel, damage that, she said, led her to decide to come off the road and work in administration at the Sampson County Sheriff’s Department.

The defense, which never denied the attack on Emanuel, said evidence in the case did not show Walthall intended to kill or harm Emanuel during the 12-second incident, which left her wounded and bleeding on a dark stretch of highway as he ran away, tossing her weapon in a field.

Tyndall offered during opening remarks back in late October that jurors would see Walthall walked away from the scene, that he tossed the deputy’s handgun, still loaded with nine rounds, and he didn’t do anything else to her.

The jury deliberated less than an hour before asking questions of the judge, and came back before nightfall saying they could not reach a decision on three of the five charges against him.