[Please note: this article was originally posted on www.stargazette.com, 11.5.2010]
Gas industry worker charged in Pa. stabbing death
Landry being held in death of his landlord
By Jason Whong
jwhong@gannett.com
CHARLESTON TOWNSHIP, TIOGA COUNTY, Pa. -- A gas industry worker from Texas has been charged in the Thursday night stabbing death of a local man from whom he rented a room.
Pennsylvania State Police in Mansfield arrested Billy Holden Landry, 49, of Liverpool, Texas. He is charged with criminal homicide and aggravated assault in the death of Shawn Charles Miller, 44, of Cherry Flats Road in Charleston Township, east of Wellsboro.
Police were called just before 11:30 p.m. Thursday to 158 Cherry Flats Road, where Miller rented two upstairs bedrooms to Landry and another gas industry worker.
Miller had no pulse when medics arrived, according to a criminal complaint against Landry filed in District Court in Wellsboro.
Miller was pronounced dead at the scene by the Tioga County Coroner's Office.
Police said the men were arguing before the stabbing.
Kimberly A. Hess said she witnessed the argument at the home that her mother, Connie Everitt, shared with Miller, Everitt's boyfriend of 13 years. Miller rented the two upstairs bedrooms in the three-bedroom home to "oil-riggers," she said.
Hess said she spent the night on the couch and was awakened by Miller asking Landry and the other man, Mike Helton, to be quiet.
"They were drunk, and one had a girl over, and they were all just rowdy and making noise," Hess said.
Hess said she heard a voice from upstairs taunting Miller and asking him to come upstairs.
Miller remained at the bottom of the stairs and asked them to "shut up, be quiet," she said.
Hess said the men came downstairs, one with a knife, as Everitt tried to keep the men apart.
Everyone was "eventually pushed down on top of Shawn," Hess said, as the fight moved toward the television.
"There was a candle that got broke, and I seen blood coming ... from Shawn's wrists, from the top of his hand, actually. And I thought it was from the candle getting broken," she said.
Miller took a few steps, then fell over. "That's when we realized he had gotten cut ... right below his chest," Hess said, as she traced a line across her abdomen with her finger.
"We were trying to give him CPR."
Landry and Helton left immediately afterward, she said. "They left without their shirts on or anything. They didn't grab their bags or nothing."
Just after midnight, Landry went to state police in Mansfield and told the dispatcher that he wanted to speak with a trooper "about a situation he was involved in," according to the complaint.
Landry told the dispatcher that "two females had beat him up" and that he had stabbed a man "in self-defense," according to the complaint.
When a trooper interviewed Landry, he said he was protecting himself and that "nobody should take a beating and not protect themselves."
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