Husband Describes Moments After Best Friend Allegedly Stabbed His Wife
Nation Hahn said he ran downstairs when he heard his wife screaming.
— -- The husband of a political strategist killed in 2013 took the stand in a North Carolina courtroom Tuesday, describing the moment he says he realized his best friend had attacked his wife with a knife.
Jonathan Broyhill is accused of stabbing Jamie Hahn multiple times inside her Raleigh, North Carolina, home. Broyhill served as best man for her husband, Nation Hahn, at their wedding.
“I sort of rounded the corner of the stairs, and my eyes immediately went ... [to where] there was blood on the floor, and I could see Jamie’s legs sticking out from behind,” Nation Hahn said. “And then I looked up and Jon was standing over her with a knife.”
Nation Hahn testified that he ran downstairs when he heard his wife screaming for help -- and that Broyhill then turned the knife on his friend, slashing him. As his wife lay wounded, Nation Hahn said, he tried to console and help her.
“I remember telling her that I loved her,” Nation Hahn said. "We said it back and forth, promising her we’d have a lot more anniversaries, go back to the beach."
Jamie Hahn ran a political consulting company, working with former U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C. Problems emerged after she hired Broyhill to do accounting work, prosecutors said.
The relationship reportedly soured when Broyhill allegedly embezzled almost $50,000 from a campaign fund, prosecutors said. The deadly attack happened after Hahn started asking questions about the financial irregularities.
Broyhill’s lawyers previously admitted in court that their client stabbed Hahn, but they argued that the stabbing wasn’t premeditated and the only person he planned to injure was himself. The defense referred to a series of bizarre lies Broyhill told in the run-up to the murder, such as having MS and pancreatic cancer, that they said reflected Broyhill’s unraveling mental state.
“Jon was determined to take his own life,” defense attorney Caroline Elliot said. “He had no motive to kill those he loved. Something snapped.”
Broyhill faces one count of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of felony assault.