By Thadeus Greenson
The Eureka Times Standard
EUREKA, Calif. — Called to testify in his own defense Wednesday, Jackson Surber told jurors that he didn’t fire his gun in a chaotic shootout until bullets were fired into his car, and a bullet fragment struck him over the right eye.
“What were you feeling?” Surber’s attorney Mark Hapgood asked.
“Scared,” replied Surber.
“Why?” Hapgood asked.
“Because they were shooting at us,” Surber answered.
“What were you afraid of?” Hapgood asked.
“That we were all going to die,” Surber testified.
Surber, 30, of Hoopa, was arrested hours after the May 5, 2011, gunfight in Willow Creek. He is on trial for the murder of Darrell Hanger, a 20-year veteran of the local volunteer fire department. Surber faces life imprisonment if convicted in the case, but has claimed the slaying was self-defense.
Prosecutors allege Surber and three companions — Sonia Hunsucker, Samantha Machado and Bruce “Jason” Stallings-Hunsucker — burglarized the house of Darrell Hanger’s son, Ryan Hanger, before dawn on May 4, 2011, while Ryan Hanger and his wife were out of town. Thinking the couple was still away, the group returned shortly after midnight the next day, according to prosecutors, and were confronted by Ryan and Darrell Hanger, who had decided to spend the night there armed with handguns.
When the Hangers attempted to stop Surber and his companions from leaving, a shootout occurred. Darrell Hanger died of multiple gunshot wounds.
The defendant began his testimony by admitting he’d previously been in trouble with the law for firearm-related charges, but said he had never stood trial before, having previously always pleaded guilty. He said he’s also a methamphetamine user, referring to himself as a “drug addict,” and saying he’d been awake for two or three days at the time of the shooting.
Surber testified that he and his companions burglarized Ryan Hanger’s house before dawn on May 4, 2011, taking numerous items that they later sold for money to purchase methamphetamine, which they then injected intravenously before parting ways for the day.
The defendant said he and the others reunited that night and “just ended up going back” to Ryan Hanger’s house on Sunset Place in Willow Creek without much discussion to “see what else we could get out of there.”
Surber testified that they arrived at Ryan Hanger’s house and found it just as they had the night before — the carport was empty, the lights were off and the screens they’d removed from windows while trying to break in the previous day were still strewn where they’d left them.
“Everything was exactly the same as it was the night before,” Surber testified, adding that he thought the home was empty.
When the stolen Toyota Tacoma pickup truck driven by Stallings-Hunsucker pulled into the carport, Surber said he immediately jumped out and walked to the home’s back door, where he and his companions had broken a window the day before to gain entry into the home. But Surber testified that he immediately noticed the window had been boarded up, realized someone might be home and began retreating back to the Tacoma, calling for his companions to get back in the truck.
As he approached the truck, Surber said he could hear Hunsucker saying, “hey, hey, hey” and then heard a gunshot just as he was climbing into the driver’s side passenger seat behind Stallings-Hunsucker, who Surber said never left the truck.
Hunsucker and Machado climbed back inside the truck, Surber testified, and Stallings-Hunsucker started it and began backing up when the truck stalled. Surber said Darrell Hanger came around to the passenger’s side of the vehicle, opened the door and pulled Machado out and shoved her to the ground, where he held her at gunpoint.
“He kept saying, ‘You thieving bastards, get the f... out of the truck and get on the ground,’ that they were going to show us what they do to thieves around here,” Surber testified, adding that he saw Ryan Hanger standing at the back corner of the Tacoma’s passenger side during the exchange, pointing a gun into the vehicle.
Surber said Stallings-Hunsucker was scrambling to restart the Tacoma — which he’d hot-wired using a screwdriver — and finally got the engine to turn over, but not to start.
Upon hearing the engine turn over, Surber testified that Darrell Hanger let Machado go and came around to the driver’s side of the vehicle. Machado, Surber said, then got up to get back in the truck.
“Jason finally got the truck started up, and that’s when the shooting started,” Surber said, adding that he heard two or three shots fired on top of one another. “As soon as the truck started up, I seen a muzzle flash outside my window, my window busts out, and that’s when I get hit in the face. At the same time I was hit in the face, Jason started screaming, saying he’d been shot. That’s when I started to shoot.”
Surber said he shot through the window on the rear driver’s side door — the same window through which he said the Hangers shot into the vehicle. The defendant testified that he’d aimed his shots at where he’d seen the muzzle flash, but wasn’t shooting at any specific person.
During cross examination, prosecution Deputy District Attorney Zack Curtis asked Surber if he’d shot at Darrell Hanger while the 50-year-old man lay on the ground in his son’s front yard. Surber said he did not.
“How is it that you got two bullets into him while he was on the ground?” Curtis asked.
“I don’t know,” Surber said. “I was just spraying, pretty much, with my gun.”
Surber also testified Wednesday that he believes Stallings-Hunsucker had a gun with him, but he was “pretty sure” Stallings-Hunsucker didn’t fire it. The defendant said the shooting was chaotic, but said he thinks he would have noticed if Stallings-Hunsucker had fired his gun.
Surber testified that he believed he was likely responsible for a bullet hole in the rear driver’s side door of the Tacoma that experts said had been fired from within the vehicle, but said he did not fire a bullet through the front driver’s side door that experts also said had been shot from inside the truck.
Both Surber and Ryan Hanger testified that the Tacoma’s driver’s side doors remained closed throughout the shooting, which appears inconsistent with physical evidence in the case. Darrell Hanger’s blood was found on the inner door frames of both the front and rear driver’s side doors of the vehicle.
Before Surber took the stand, Charles Hames testified that he was hitchhiking outside Willow Creek at about 11:30 a.m. on May 4, 2011, when a car stopped and the driver asked if he was Charles Hames. The witness testified that the man identified himself as Darrell Hanger.
“He said his house had been robbed, and he heard I was involved,” Hames said. “He was irritated.”
Hames testified he told Darrell Hanger he didn’t know anything about the burglary, and said the man left him alone, but not before leaving him with a warning.
“He said that if I heard of anyone who did (the burglary), let them know he would shoot if they returned,” Hames testified. “He said he’d shoot if they came back. ... He told me to put the word out.”
Under cross examination, Hames testified that he might have gone to school with Surber and knew Stallings-Hunsucker and Machado from a stint at the Humboldt Recovery Center.
Hapgood also called Nikowah Hostler — Surber’s cousin — to the stand Wednesday. He testified that in the hours after the May 5, 2011, shooting Stallings-Hunsucker and Machado arrived at his house and that he helped bandage several bullet wounds on Stallings-Hunsucker’s left arm.
Curtis is expected to continue his cross examination of Surber when the trial continues today.
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