Witness Says She Saw Defendant Shoot Florida Abortion Doctor

A witness testified Tuesday in the trial of a man accused of killing an abortion doctor that she saw the defendant fire the fatal shots.

“I heard three pops,” Della Lindsey said. “The first pop got my attention and then I saw the man shooting.”

She identified Michael F. Griffin in court but said that, at the time of the shooting last March 10, she was about 200 feet away and was unable to see who his target was.

Griffin, 32, an anti-abortion activist, is accused of shooting Dr. David Gunn, 47, of Eufaula, Ala., three times in the back.

Gunn was shot when he arrived for work at the back of Pensacola Women’s Medical Services while an anti-abortion demonstration was being held in front of the clinic.

Lindsey, who worked at a shop in the same commercial complex, is expected to be the only prosecution witness claiming actually to have seen the gun being fired.

Others are expected to say they saw Griffin behind the clinic just after the shooting or watched him drop a revolver near Gunn’s body.

On cross-examination, Lindsey denied suggestions by defense lawyer Robert Kerrigan that she only presumed Griffin was the shooter because she saw him a few minutes later in a police car, after he was arrested.

The trial was interrupted briefly Tuesday when Griffin approached Circuit Judge John Parnham during a break and complained that Assistant State Atty. James Murray was signaling prosecution witnesses by nodding his head and looking over the top of his glasses.

Murray denied the allegation, saying he looked over the top of his glasses to see distant objects. Kerrigan said he had not noticed any signaling.