Andrew L. Riegel told a Schuylkill County jury on Tuesday that he could not believe it when he realized he had shot his best friend in June 2005 in a townhouse in Schuylkill Haven.
“When the gun went off, it startled me,” Riegel said about his killing of Richard E. Watkins, 18. “I asked, ‘Was it really loaded?’ I heard Ricky ... going down the steps.”
Riegel testified on the first day of the trial of him and nine other people being sued by Andrea Watkins, Richard Watkins’ mother and the administratrix of his estate, for the June 7, 2005, death of her son. The trial, over which Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin is presiding, is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. today with closing arguments.
Andrea Watkins is asking for unspecified damages in excess of $50,000, plus costs and punitive damages, from the defendants, whom she alleges caused her son’s death.
Richard Watkins, who was an 11th-grade student, died after being shot with a .357-caliber Ruger Magnum revolver at 334 S. Garfield Ave., Schuylkill Haven Police Chief Jeffrey J. Walcott testified.
“I could hear screaming,” Walcott testified about the scene when he entered. “The individual (Riegel) holding him was hysterical. I had no idea what had occurred.”
Walcott said he questioned witnesses, including Riegel, who said he had asked Raymond Callaghan, Pottsville, to look at the gun.
When questioned Tuesday by Richard B. Bateman Jr., Media, Andrea Watkins’ lawyer, Riegel said he went to help his friend after firing the shot.
“I ran down the steps immediately. I picked him up,” Riegel said.
“Was there a lot of blood?” Bateman asked.
“Yes,” Riegel answered.
“All over?”
“Yes.”
Callaghan testified he found the gun in his mother’s room and called Riegel upstairs to look at it. He said he did not want to remember the rest.
“I watched my best friend die,” Callaghan said.
The other defendants in the case include:
• Christa Azbell, Schuylkill Haven
• Joan Callaghan, Pottsville, Raymond’s mother
• Kara M. Coobaugh, Schuylkill Haven
• Adam Cooper, Schuylkill Haven
• Judy Cooper, Schuylkill Haven
• Matthew Ditzler, Orwigsburg
• Dale R. Gangaway, Reading, the owner of the gun, who did not appear for the first day of the trial
• Gary Riegel, Schuylkill Haven
Andrea Watkins originally filed the lawsuit on June 8, 2007, in Philadelphia County Court. However, Philadelphia County Judge William J. Manfredi ordered the case transferred to Schuylkill County Court.
In 2008, Judge, now Senior Judge, D. Michael Stine dismissed the maker of the gun, Sturm, Ruger & Co., Southport, Connecticut, from the lawsuit, ruling the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act bars such lawsuits against gun manufacturers, distributors, dealers and importers.
Riegel was tried as a juvenile. On April 4, 2006, President Judge William E. Baldwin found him delinquent of involuntary manslaughter and possession of a firearm by a minor. He served probation until he turned 21.