By BOB WATSON News Tribune

Misty Graves took the stand in her own defense this morning, telling a six-man, six-woman Cole County jury she shot Lesean Covington after "he started hitting me and kept getting up and trying to swing at me."

Ms. Graves, 18, is charged with second-degree murder for killing Covington last April 17. She could face a life prison sentence if she’s convicted.

She said Covington was sitting in the right side rear passenger seat and she was driving her car the night he died.

Under questioning by her attorney, Mark Evans of the public defender’s office, Ms. Graves testified
she was afraid that "he could hurt me, knowing I was pregnant."

During an argument with Covington before the shooting, she said, "He said he was going to kick my ass."

She also said Covington told her he’d beat her if she got out of the car. She had stopped the car in the 400 block of Lafayette Street and told Covington and Antwain Jones to get out, she said.

Ms. Graves testified she kept firing until "my gun was empty" as Covington kept hitting her.

By the time she finished shooting, she said, she was laying down across both front seats of the car, a small Toyota.

She said she was afraid of him because she knew of other people who’d been hurt in fights with Covington.

She said she had tried to stop Covington from hitting her, by placing the gun in her lap where "he could see it."

On Thursday, Dr. Jay Dix told jurors Covington bled to death from a gunshot wound to the chest that perforated both lungs and the aorta.

Dix is a University of Missouri-Columbia associate professor of pathology, and the medical examiner for Boone and Callaway counties. He performs autopsies in questionable deaths from other Mid-Missouri counties.

He also testified the fatal shot, and at least one other that hit Covington in the face, were fired at close range.

Dix told Evans that Covington’s right hand was bruised, and there was alcohol in his blood indicating he’d had "six or seven drinks."

Under cross-examination this morning by Assistant Cole County Prosecutor Bill Tackett, Ms. Graves acknowledged she could have ended the fight by putting the gun down and, in Tackett’s words, "driven him where he wanted to go."

But Ms. Graves challenged several statements Tackett said she had made during a tape-recorded interview after the shooting.

Tackett quoted from the interview transcript that she said: "When I got to the mall, I was getting drunk."

Ms. Graves said this morning: "I did not say that."

She also countered Thursday’s testimony by Charles Jackson.

She acknowledged she went to his home in the 200 block of Chestnut Street after the shooting, and changed clothes there.

She did not watch a movie or touch Byron White she said.

Jackson testified Thursday that Ms. Graves had stayed at the apartment for "a couple of hours" while Jackson watched a movie, and that she was "snuggling" on the floor with White.

She said she was at the apartment, "asking Charles and Byron what I should do."

She told Tackett she hadn’t called anyone about the shooting.

She also testified that she didn’t check to see if Covington was still alive when she dragged his body from her car on Riverside Drive.

A Riverside Drive resident found the man’s body in an alley about 6:15 a.m., about 3 1/2 hours after he died.

On Thursday afternoon, three people who knew Ms. Graves testified about the shooting.

Witness Steve Brandenburg said:

"I heard one shot, saw Misty get hit (on the arm by Covington) and heard three more gunshots."

Both Antwain Jones and Alvina Mahan also testified about the pattern of the fired shots.

Jones, father of Ms. Graves’ then unborn-child and Covington’s first cousin, said Ms. Graves and Covington began arguing when she refused to drive him from Jefferson City’s east side to the Westview Heights subdivision on the city’s southwest edge.

Jones said he was sitting in the back seat of the car, next to Coving-ton, when the argument began.

"I was telling her and him both to chill out," he testified, "and then I heard a pistol cock."

Ms. Graves this morning denied cocking the pistol before putting it in her lap.

Ms. Mahan, who had been riding in Ms. Graves’ front passenger seat, testified she tried to block Coving-ton from reaching from the back into the front seat during his fight with Ms. Graves.

As the fight got more heated, Ms. Mahan tried to leave the car, she said.

Both Ms. Mahan and Jones testified the fight occurred several hours after a group of people, including Ms. Graves and Covington, had met at Quigley’s, a bar on Route CC.

Final arguments were expected in the case this afternoon.