Bryan Wall Closing arguments are set to begin this morning in the trial of a Simi Valley man charged with killing his daughter’s boyfriend in 2008.

The trial of Harry Scribner, 66, began last week at Ventura County Superior Court. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter with the use of a gun, which could put him in prison for up to 21 years.

Scribner, who operated a karaoke business in town, has admitted shooting 31-year-old Bryan Wall in front of the Scribner home on Heavenly Court on Nov. 16, 2008, after discovering Wall had beaten his daughter.

On the first day of the trial, Jamie Scribner, Harry’s daughter, testified she and Wall had gone to a “wrap party” for “Transformers 2” on the night of Nov. 15 and got into an argument after Wall began drinking and then wanted to drive home.

Wall, a father of one and a native of Simi Valley, worked on set construction.

Harry Scribner Instead of going to the couple’s home in the San Fernando Valley, Wall took Jamie Scribner to her parents’ home in Simi Valley, for reasons that are still unknown.

The fight escalated during the ride home, Jamie said on the stand, before Bryan ultimately “socked” her in the face. She said he hit her several times with a closed fist, and she retaliated, scratching his face.

Jamie said Wall was driving recklessly at 90 mph, and at one point stopped the truck in the middle lane of the freeway to continue beating her.

Carlo Spiga, Scribner’s attorney, presented a series of photos of Jamie’s body taken the following day, They showed black-and-blue eyes, a scab on her chin, bruises on her arms, hips and legs, and scratches on her shoulders and legs.

“He never calmed down,” Jamie said.

Prosecutor Rebecca Day asked Jamie if the physical violence that night on the ride home was mutual. She admitted she had fought back, but she had taken the brunt of the violence.

‘Daddy, what are

you going to do?’

Videotaped police interviews presented by the prosecution showed Harry Scribner on Nov. 16 walking the police through what occurred the night of Wall’s death.

Scribner, quiet and clearly in shock in the video, said he and his wife, Renee, were sleeping when they were awoken by pounding on the door.

He got his handgun and went to his front door.

Scribner told police that he kept the gun under his pillow with rounds in it, cocked and locked with the safety off. He said he had been the victim of theft in the past.

Wall was apparently at the door, and demanded Scribner get his daughter. On the video, Scribner tells police Wall’s face was bloody, and as he saw his daughter come up the driveway to the house, her face was bloody as well.

Wall apparently went back to the truck but came back up the driveway. Jamie testified that no words were exchanged as her father and Wall went toward one another.

As her father walked by her, Jamie said, “Daddy, what are you going to do?”

Harry Scribner said he didn’t mean to shoot.

“I started going at him and he came at me, so I put the gun up to scare him and the (expletive) thing went off,” Scribner said in an audio police interview that was played for the jury.

Wall died on Scribner’s driveway of a gunshot wound to the neck.

Jamie Scribner, wearing a blue dress, black sweater and black shoes, her blond hair falling around her face, contained her emotion on the stand, although she often seemed on the verge of tears.

“Bryan immediately fell to the ground,” Jamie said. “I fell to the ground and I held him. I just re- member holding him and trying to find the wound. I tried giving him CPR. I tried getting the blood out of his mouth.

“I just remember screaming. I do remember hearing my dad saying something along the lines of ‘Oh my God, I’m sorry.’ He was crying, ‘I’m so sorry.’”

‘Why didn’t you just

turn around?’

Simi Valley police officers were amongst those called to the stand, including Officer Jason Wilkinson, who described the scene when he arrived: a man, lying dead, bleeding in the driveway. A young woman screaming and crying, standing over his body. A man and his wife standing off to the side.

“He was very upset about what had happened,” Wilkinson said. “He put his hands on his face a couple times. He appeared to have cried a couple times, he was unfocused, typical things someone who had just been through something traumatic would do.”

In one interview, Detective Jay Carrott, the lead officer on the case, asks Scribner why he didn’t “just turn around and go in the house and lock the door.”

“Your daughter has said she walked past you and (Wall) is still in the car,” Carrott said. “Bryan takes a couple steps out of the car and one shot, boom.

“(Jamie) said the two of you are looking like you are going to go at each other . . . she said you were charging toward him too. Why didn’t you just go inside?”

Scribner said he “didn’t remember” that it happened like that. At the end of the interview, Carrott tells Scribner that he must go inform Wall’s parents.

“Tell them I’m sorry” Scribner can be heard saying.

Members of Wall’s family wept when photos of Bryan’s body lying on the driveway were posted for the jury.

‘He didn’t always do this.’

Jamie Scribner testified to much of the violence that had occurred in their relationship, including one night when Wall broke her nose after a fight on the side of the freeway.

“He didn’t always do this,” Scribner told the jury. “In the past, he’d hit me once and that’s where it stopped.”

Jamie said that two or three weeks before Wall’s death, he beat her in the face in his truck in a bar parking lot. When two or three girls pulled her from the truck, he punched one of them in the face too.

He sped off and later crashed the truck. Three other witnesses came to the stand to corroborate the incident, for which charges of domestic violence or assault were never filed.

Nichole Johnson, Wall’s ex-sister in-law, testified about a time in 2004 when Wall came to her home wanting to see his infant son, who along with the baby’s mother was staying with her at the time.

When she told Wall he couldn’t take the child from the house, he flew into a rage, she said.

“He grabbed me around the throat,” testified Johnson, adding that three children were present in the room at the time of the incident.

As a result, she filed for a restraining order against Wall.

“It was a scary incident. I had children in the home. I just wanted to be protected,” she said.

Under cross-examination by Day, Johnson said it was a completely isolated incident, out of character for Wall.

When asked by Day if she liked Wall and if Wall had a close relationship with his son, Johnson responded “yes” to both questions.