Wednesday, February 14, 2001

Survivors recall sudden death

Fighting back tears, two 18-year-olds tell the jury in the Dennis Cramm trial what it was like after bullets tore through their car May 30 in south Everett, killing two companions.

By Scott North

Herald Writer

First there was a fistfight.

Then there were gunshots.

Then the sound of shattering glass, and the terrified screams of young people, suddenly confronted with the gruesome deaths of their friends.

A Snohomish County jury listened Tuesday as two teen-age witnesses described what it was like May 30 when bullets crashed through the back window of the car they were riding in, killing their companions, Jason Thompson and Jesse Stoner.

Chris Gulsvig, 18, testified how he had driven his longtime friends to watch a fight at the south Everett home of Dennis Cramm, now on trial for two counts of first-degree murder.

Cramm, then 17, and another youth, 16, were grappling on the lawn when gunfire suddenly erupted, Gulsvig said.

He said he and his friends, all of whom were unarmed, piled into his brown Honda and were trying to drive away when bullets slammed through the rear window.

Stoner and Thompson were seated in back. Blinking back tears, Gulsvig described looking in the rearview mirror and seeing his friends, both 18, mangled and bleeding, with bullet wounds to their heads.

The teen said he screamed in terror as he drove to a supermarket parking lot, where he jumped out of the car and sought help.

"I didn't look back," Gulsvig said. "I didn't want to see what I saw the first time."

When the bullets began hitting the car, Thompson's girlfriend, Tyffannie Trunnell, 18, said she was seated between her boyfriend and Stoner. Trunnell said she had her head down, trying to stay out of the line of fire, when she felt "something on my back."

Deputy prosecutor Ed Stemler asked her what had happened.

"I noticed that my boyfriend had been shot," she said, tears welling in her eyes.

"What did you see?" Stemler asked.

"I saw blood all over," Trunnell said.

"What did you do?"

"Start screaming," she said.

As they listened to the young woman's testimony, the family and friends of the slain men quietly wept.

Prosecutors allege Cramm showed "extreme indifference" to human life when he grabbed one of his father's military-style SKS semiautomatic rifles and began shooting outside his home. The gunplay came after a prearranged fight escalated into an armed confrontation.

Cramm's attorney, Royce Ferguson, has told jurors that his client acted in self defense, or defense of others, when he picked up a gun and began shooting. He's also said there is reason to doubt his client was the only person who fired into the car that night.

Under questioning by Ferguson, Gulsvig and Trunnell both acknowledged they had come to the Cramm home along with two other carloads of people who were supporting the teen who was fighting Cramm. They had said nothing to Cramm to assure him that they posed no threat.

Gulsvig testified that when he and others arrived at the Cramm home, about 15 people, mostly adult men, were already there. The defendant's father, Dale Cramm, 45, told those present that nobody would be allowed to intervene in the fight.

"I heard his Dad say: 'It's a fair fight. One on one. Anybody jumps in we're going to start blasting,' " Gulsvig said.

The fight lasted for several minutes, and the younger Cramm was getting the better of the other teen. Then Dale Cramm, for some reason, jumped in and began choking the youth who was fighting his son, Gulsvig said.

That's when Gulsvig's friend, Adrian Dickerson, grabbed the elder Cramm and pinned him against a car.

The gunfire began when a Cramm housemate, who had two handguns in the waistband of his pants, attempted to intervene as well. Jurors have already been told the man was disarmed by one of the 16-year-old's supporters, who then began firing into the air.

Somebody also apparently pointed a gun at one of the defendant's supporters, possibly Dale Cramm, jurors were told Tuesday.

Under questioning by Ferguson, Trunnell recounted being in the car, moments before it began driving away, and watching a young, "heavy-set black guy" pointing a handgun at a man, possibly the elder Cramm, and ordering him to drop the shotgun he was carrying. She said the older man dropped the weapon and got on the ground. The younger man ran off with the shotgun.

The older man was yelling for the younger man to bring back his firearm, she said.