A Newton County jury found Eric Watts guilty of hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault, and aggravated stalking of his wife, Shawn Brown.1 The trial court sentenced Watts to 30 years, with 12 to be served in confinement and the balance on probation. Watts appeals from the denial of his amended motion for a new trial, contending that trial counsel was ineffective. We affirm. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the record shows that Watts and Brown had been in a multi-year relationship that led to their marriage in 1998 or 1999. Throughout their relationship, Watts showed signs of violent behavior, including slapping, punching, and pushing Brown, and burning her clothes. In June 1999, Watts pulled a knife on Brown three times and stabbed her once. In October 2005, Brown became concerned with Watts’s behavior and obtained a temporary protective order from the Walton County Superior Court. Watts and Brown attempted to work things out, and on the morning of January 10, 2006, Brown agreed to drive Watts to a doctor’s appointment in her aunt’s car. When Brown would not follow Watts’s directions, he became agitated, called Brown a “bitch,” and threatened to kill her and himself. Watts then pulled a black-handled poultry knife out of his coat pocket and stabbed at Brown, catching her hand with the blade. Brown testified that she was afraid for her life and that she jumped from the vehicle, which was traveling at approximately 45 mph. Watts steered the car to the side of the road, jumped in the driver seat and sped off. Brown fractured both of her ankles; sustained road rash on her stomach, face, and shoulder; and required stitches on her finger from the knife wound.
Darryl Liesmann testified that he was on his way to the doctor when he observed a woman standing in the middle of the road, waving her hands in the air and screaming “please help me, please help me, he’s trying to kill me.” As Liesmann stopped to help the woman, she fell into the roadway and he noticed that she had a laceration on her hand that “was bleeding pretty bad.” Liesmann asked the woman who was trying to kill her and she said, “my husband.” According to Liesmann, he directed traffic around the woman while another motorist called for help.
