Three men held for trial in fatal ballpark beating

Three men charged with taking part in the beating death of a man in the parking lot outside the Phillies' ballpark were ordered held for trial on murder charges yesterday by a Philadelphia judge who said he was "shocked by the savagery of the attack."

Sorting through six hours of sometimes contradictory testimony about the July 25 altercation from 12 witnesses, in which all three men were identified as the key assailants of David W. Sale Jr., Municipal Court Judge Thomas Nocella said he was struck most by what was missing: defensive wounds on Sale's hands.

"There was no damage to his hands," Nocella said. "Everything was directed at him."

Nocella held the trio - Charles Bowers, 35, of Oxford Circle; James Groves, 45, of Kensington; and Francis Kirchner, 28, of Fishtown - for trial on a general charge of murder, which means it will be left to a jury to decide whether they are guilty and, if so, of which degree of murder.

The ruling also means that the three will continue being held without bail pending trial.

Defense attorneys Brian J. McMonagle, Scott DiClaudio, and Louis T. Savino Jr. argued that the judge should not hold the three for trial on murder charges. The lawyers maintained there was no evidence that the three conspired to kill Sale or that linked them to what they contended was the fatal injury: a tear to Sale's left vertebral artery in the neck that caused massive bleeding into his brain and spinal column.

Several witnesses identified Kirchner as the man who allegedly kicked Sale in the neck area after the 22-year-old Lansdale man was prone on the ground.

Daniel Curran, who called Sale "my best friend," described the blow as a "brutal kick, as if it was a football and he was attempting to punt my friend's face."

Jennifer Schaffer, who was on a bus with Bowers, Groves, and Kirchner and about 40 to 50 people that left from Moe's Tavern, a Fishtown neighborhood pub, said that she saw Kirchner kick at Sale's upper chest after he was seated on the ground and that the blow "kind of jolted him up so that his back hit a car and then he fell."

But Assistant District Attorney Richard Sax argued that the defense attorney's focus on Sale's neck injury was misplaced. Sax cited the testimony of Assistant Medical Examiner Chase Blanchard that Sale died of "multiple blunt-force injuries."

Blanchard said Sale sustained injuries that also caused significant internal bleeding in his liver, spleen, pancreas, kidneys, and bowel.

"No vital organs there!" Sax argued in a near shout, adding that the extent of Sale's injuries was more than enough to infer two critical elements of murder: a specific intent to kill and the use of deadly force.

"Deadly force?" Sax said. "They broke him in half. They broke him at his neck."

Emotions and tension were high through most of the hearing, especially when friends and associates of the three men were called to testify by Sax.

All three men glared angrily and shook their heads when a pub mate, Jason Johnson, testified that he had reluctantly implicated the three to police and said he had since been threatened as a witness.

"Hey, rat, you're going to get it," was the warning Johnson said was yelled at him Tuesday as he walked home from a store in Fishtown.

Johnson told Sax a car he did not identify came up from behind as he was walking.

"I'm afraid of what might happen," Johnson said, explaining to Nocella why he did not want to testify.

Though the witnesses were often contradictory and sometimes reluctant, the 12 - including five who had no connection to either side - collectively described an alcohol-fueled feud that began in Citizens Bank Park early in the game between some of the group from Moe's and a bachelor party that Sale was attending with Curran and other friends.

The dispute flared again inside McFadden's, a sports pub attached to the stadium, and then spilled out into the parking lot after both groups were ejected by McFadden's security.

Matthew Michael Smith, a security guard at Citizens Bank Park, said the bad blood started early, in the first or second innings in section 305, when the bachelor party arrived and found some people from Moe's in their seats.

Stadium staff asked the Moe's group to move. They did, but Smith said Bowers "took offense and went on to scream and yell profanities and obscenities" at the bachelor-party group and were ejected from the stadium.

About halfway through the game, members of both groups wandered into McFadden's, where someone spilled a beer on Schaffer and both Sale and Curran got sucker-punched to the floor.

After McFadden's bouncers threw out both groups, the combatants continued to yell at each other until a fight again broke out, ending after Sale was on the ground and barely breathing.

Curran testified that when they left the bar he tried to call for reinforcements because he knew there was going to be a fight.

Curran also testified that Sale was among those exchanging words with the group from Moe's: "Dave was yelling. He had just got punched in the face. He was yelling and screaming at the crowd across the street. I kept telling David to shut up. I knew we were outnumbered."

Sax, however, argued that the case "wasn't about who started it, who spilled beer on whom, and who threw the first punch. This is about how it ended."