Crime and Courts

Trial begins for man accused of Gallatin Gateway bar stabbing

Posted: Mar 4, 2013 5:17 PM by Erin Schattauer
Updated: Mar 4, 2013 5:19 PM

BOZEMAN - The trial got underway today for a man accused of stabbing another man outside Stacey's Bar in Gallatin Gateway.

A jury was chosen and testimony got underway at the trial for Mark Logan who is charged with assault with a weapon.

Deputy County Attorney Erin Murphy said during opening statements that in the early morning hours of Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011, Logan stabbed another man several times in the back after a fight broke out outside the bar.

Gallatin County sheriff's deputies who responded to the fight that night were the first witnesses to take the stand. One deputy testified that he responded to the stabbing that night and found the victim sitting half on a stool, inside the bar, and saw his stab wounds. The knife was found outside the bar.

According to court documents, when officials interviewed the victim's wife she told them that she and her husband went to the bar after a wedding at Gallatin Gateway Inn. She said she and her friends were outside smoking when a man came up and threw her friend into a parked car. The woman said her husband stepped in and told the man not to touch the woman; that's when it "turned into chaos." She was taken into the bar and, when someone brought her husband inside, they said he had been stabbed, she said.

The victim told police he thought he was being hit in the back with a rock, but then realized he had been stabbed in the back by the man wearing a full camouflage suit, court papers state.

The victim was stabbed six times. One of the stab wounds was to the lining of his lung, court documents state. He also reportedly suffered an injury to his left ear when an earring was ripped out.

Police later linked Logan to the stabbing and asked for the public's helping locating him. Logan was later found in White Sulphur Springs.

The trial is scheduled for the rest of the week in Judge John Brown's courtroom.