Murder trial underway for Arden gas station double homicide; codefendant testifies
ASHEVILLE — An Edneyville man is on trial this week in Buncombe County Superior Court, facing a potential of life imprisonment for the 2022 shooting deaths of Sandy Elizabeth Torrey and Bryan Emmanuel Khopkar.
Opening statements began March 5 for Godiet Corral, who faces two charges of first-degree murder after Torrey, 26, and Khopkar, 39, were found shot to death on Dec. 19, 2022, in the front seats of a vehicle parked at a Shell-brand gas station on Mills Gap Road in Arden.
Defense attorney Ted Besen told the Citizen Times that the state intends to call 22 witnesses to the stand. He estimated that the trial will last until the middle of next week.
Among the witness to already testify is Corral’s codefendant, Cody Wayne Dockins, who was in the car when the killings happened and faces two charges of first-degree murder. A trial date for Dockins has not been set yet, according to defense attorney Sam Snead.
A man who called 911 shortly following the shooting also testified from the witness stand March 5. Prosecuting attorney Kyle Sherard and Besen crossed examined him based on surveillance camera footage from the Shell station and his 911 call.
The 911 caller read his written statement to the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, which said at about 6:17 a.m., he heard three gunshots and proceeded up Mills Gap Road. The statement said he saw two males running away from a brown Volvo, one holding a bundled blue towel.
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Besen asked if he actually saw the shooting, and the witness said he only heard the “three pops” of a gun.
After he saw the two men running, the 911 caller said he continued down another road before turning around. The two were gone by the time he got back to the gas station.
When he arrived at the Volvo around 6:18, according to surveillance video played in court, the driver was bleeding from his mouth and chest but still breathing and holding a Glock pistol in his hand, according to his statements to police and testimony in court.
The caller said a woman – later identified as Torrey – was “slumped over” next to the man. In a statement to the Fletcher Police Department, he said the driver’s side window was shot out.
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What did the codefendant testify?
Dockins, as the only other person still alive who was in the vehicle, recounted what happened that morning based on questions from both prosecuting and defense attorneys.
Dockins testified March 5 that Corral was at his house earlier that morning, “hanging out” and they “smoked meth” during that time. He’d known Corral for three to four years, who would come by his house sometimes, as Dockins said a lot of people do.
Later in the proceedings, Besen asked Dockins what the “concoction” of drugs he was on at the time did to his memory.
“I forget a little bit here and there," Dockins said.
Running through the events of the morning, Dockins said he and Corral didn’t have a car and needed a ride to the Cascades hotel off I-26 in Hendersonville. He wanted to pick up a woman he’d been hanging out with from there, plus they had to “get something that was taken from a friend,” though he didn’t disclose what that was in court.
Khopkar had agreed to drive them, and they were going to “hook him up for the ride,” he said. Dockins had known Khopkar for a couple years, and they’d get drugs from each other, mostly meth and fentanyl, according to Dockins.
On their way to Hendersonville, Dockins said there was an argument in the car that arose “almost immediately” when they turned onto Mills Gap Road. Khopkar had wanted to know who was going to be at the hotel and what their ages were, Dockins said.
At different points of his testimony, Dockins said he replied that “it doesn’t matter because (Khopkar is) not going inside,” that he didn’t know who all would be there, and he doesn’t ask about people’s ages.
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“He started punching the gas and driving erratic,” Dockins said in court. When the defense attorney asked him how Khopkar was acting, Dockins said he was “loud,” “visibly upset” and “agitated.”
He said Godiet then asked him, “who’s this idiot you got me riding with?” Dockins testified that Khopkar then pulled into the gas station parking lot, about one mile from Dockin’s house.
According to Dockins’ testimony, Khlopkar asked, “you know I have a pistol, right?” Dockins said in court that he didn’t take that as a threat since he’d known Khlopkar to make statements like that and had seen him “pull a gun on a kid that tried to short him $40 on a bag of dope.”
Khopkar then told the two men in the back seats to get out of the car, Dockins said.
He said that he saw Khopkar reach to the area of his car door that Dockins said he “always had a gun.” But Dockins also said he never actually saw a gun, since his sight was obscured from the car seat between them.
Dockins said a round of gun shots came from next to him in a "quick jerk motion.” Sherard asked him “Godiet?” to which Dockins responded “Yes.”
From Dockin’s testimony, Khopkar was shot first. He then started to get out the car from where he was sitting behind the driver’s side.
“He told me to get out on the other side,” Dockins said.
To clarify, the prosecuting attorney asked, “did Bryan tell you to get out?”
“Bryan was dead,” Dockins said.
He then heard the woman screaming, told her something along the lines of “try to calm down” and was getting his stuff together, Dockins said. He then heard a second round of shots and took off running, according to his testimony.
Dockins then proceeded to run back to his house and hid in “a pile of leaves” in a yard near his house, he said in court. He saw one of his friends pulling into his house and told them he needed a ride. He then got a backpack of stuff and left to “go anywhere.”
He made it all the way to Peach Tree, Georgia, he said in court.
The next time Dockins came back to North Carolina, he was arrested by the U.S. Marshals, according to court proceedings.
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Where are the four people charged now?
Dockins was arrested about 9:30 p.m. Dec. 21, 2022, in Rutherford County, according to a Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office news release, which listed U.S. Marshals Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol as the arresting agencies.
Dockins and Corral — who was arrested Dec. 19, 2022 — are both being held in the Buncombe County Detention Facility under no bond.
Russell Allen Squire, 35, of Fletcher, was arrested Dec. 22, 2022, and charged with accessory after the fact for assisting Dockins in “escaping detention, arrest and punishment” by transporting him to Forest City after Dockins committed “murder in the first degree … against Bryan Emmanuel Khopkar,” his arrest warrant said.
Squire is still being held at the Buncombe jail under a $113,000 bond, according to an online jail database. His next court date is set for March 11.
A fourth individual, Christine Nicole Moore, 35, was also charged Dec. 22, 2022, with accessory after the fact for transporting Dockins it Forest City and not alerting law enforcement to his whereabouts.
Moore's charge of accessory was dismissed without leave by the DA's office on June 2, 2023, according to court records. Her dismissal notice, signed by Sherard, states Moore agreed to plead guilty to felony obstruction of justice.
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Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Murder trial ongoing for 2022 Arden gas station double homicide
