Before homicide trial starts, Lebanon man takes plea deal for role in 2015 fatal stabbing

Lack of cooperative witnesses and evidence led prosecutors to offer a Lebanon man a plea deal Tuesday morning, just before the homicide trial of a 2015 fatal stabbing was to begin, officials said.

Standing before Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas Judge Charles Jones Jr., William Culbreath pled no contest to voluntary manslaughter. He was scheduled to be starting a homicide trial for his role in the death of Travis Farrell.

Culbreath said little in court, besides answering a few questions from Jones. A jury had already been selected Monday for his case.

District Attorney Pier Hess Graf said that with all the witness and evidence issues the prosecution team had in this case, the voluntary manslaughter plea seemed an appropriate resolution for "what this trial became."

"I can say in 13 years of trying murders, I have never offered a plea bargain after a jury selection," she said. "I never offered a plea bargain this late in the game, frankly, on any case, let alone on murder. But when you think about justice and when you think about what we are here to do, I think it was an appropriate outcome given the evidence (and) witness issues. It was an appropriate resolution."

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In November 2015, Lebanon police filed a criminal homicide charge against Culbreath alleging he contributed to Farrell's death.

The two men got into a fight Nov. 16, 2015, outside the Silver Dollar Grille on 46 N. Ninth St. Police were called to the area at 1:17 a.m. for a report of a stabbing and found Farrell on the sidewalk. He had a severe neck laceration and was rushed to Hershey Medical Center, where he died.

An autopsy was conducted by Dauphin County Coroner Dr. Graham Hetrick, and officials reported the manner of death was a homicide.

"The night of the killing, the police filed the criminal charge for Mr. Culbreath within hours," Graf said. "He was charged by 7 a.m. that morning."

Surveillance video from inside the bar shows Culbreath walking by Farrell and saying something to him, according to court documents. Farrell stood, and he and Culbreath walked toward the front door of the bar. No one else was with them, according to a police affidavit.

Culbreath was arrested in June 2020 in Charlotte, North Carolina, for possession of cocaine and resisting arrest. He was extradited back to Lebanon County in September 2020 to face prosecution, according to officials.

"In five years, witnesses move, witnesses' memories deteriorate," Graf said. "Witnesses go from this is a traumatic incident and they want to cooperate ... to they've moved past this, and they don't want to talk about a murder and what happened that night."

By the time of Culbreath's preliminary hearing, officials had a witness inside the bar who gave a recorded statement saying Culbreath was with Farrell and then fled.

"At the preliminary hearing, he refused to enter the room, he refused to answer questions," Graf said. "He was, for all intents and purposes, a hostile witness."

Prosecutors found a second witness who saw Farrell as he was exiting the bar, bleeding to death as Culbreath ran away. Last month, officials learned that witness passed away in Baltimore, Maryland, according to Graf.

"That put us, from a prosecution standpoint, into having no witnesses that were inside the bar that evening, that were cooperative, that would come into the court and articulate for the jury that they saw this defendant and this defendant alone, in close proximity to our victim immediately after being stabbed and taking off running," she said.

Police also interviewed Culbreath's cousin, who gave a statement to police about the incident. Police have not been able to find that witness again; Graf said he has an active warrant for not appearing in this case. He also has arrest warrants in Virginia and Scranton.

"There were no viable, living cooperative witnesses for this trial that could talk about what happened outside the bar that night," she said.

Police also questioned Crystal Shultz, who told police that she had been in relationships with both men. Shultz said she was seeing Farrell while Culbreath was in prison, according to court documents.

Shultz pleaded guilty in June 2016 to hindering apprehension for arranging transportation for Culbreath. According to a police affidavit filed in Shultz's case, a police informant said Shultz went to the home of a man identified only as "Bobby" on the morning of Nov. 15. She made arrangements for Bobby to drive Culbreath out of Lebanon to Reading.

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A pocket knife was found outside of the Silver Dollar Grille door by police, which had no fingerprints on it and pathologists said did not contribute to Farrell's wound. Testing showed Farrell's DNA on the knife.

"The concern we had as a prosecution team is that we had no one to talk about what happened outside the bar. There's no video of the murder, there's no forensic evidence to show exactly what happened in what order and from whom," Graf said. "And now you have this knife in play, and the defense can say that Travis Farrell had pulled this knife and potentially started the altercation."

Culbreath can be sentenced up to 11 years for voluntary manslaughter. His next court date is scheduled for Dec. 7.

Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on Twitter at @DAMattToth.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Lebanon man takes plea deal moments before his homicide trial starts