FLOYD -- For the first time since he fatally shot a man in Check last summer, Joshua Jonathan Hairston is expected to speak publicly about the incident at his jury trial today.

Hairston, 19, of Bassett is charged with first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in the shooting death of Sean Michael Neumann, 39. Neumann was killed at his home on Floyd Highway North late the night of June 5.

"Josh Hairston shot and killed Sean Neumann. That is not in dispute," Hairston's lawyer, Harrison Schroeder, said during his opening statement Monday at the first day of Hairston's trial in Floyd County Circuit Court.

But Schroeder contends that Hairston fired five shots from his pistol only after Neumann came after him. Four of those shots struck Neumann; a fifth went into the bottom of a kitchen cabinet.

Floyd County Commonwealth's Attorney Stephanie Shortt argued that Neumann was "brutally gunned down" by Hairston. She said that on June 5, "a senseless, unjustified murder occurred."

Schroeder told jurors that Hairston will be one of the last witnesses to testify in the case, which is expected to conclude today.

He said that Hairston was a crack dealer and Neumann was one of his best customers.

Brittany Worrell testified that she and Neumann were close friends and he spent most of the day of the shooting with her. That evening at a cookout, she testified, Neumann told her that Hairston owed him some money and he was going to get it. He told her that he had been shorted on some cocaine he bought from Hairston, she said.

Neumann asked Worrell for a ride to his home, but she refused. She had a bad feeling about it, she testified.

Another friend, Wayne Meeks, agreed to drive Neumann home. Meeks testified that he didn't know why Neumann needed to go home. He waited in the driveway while Neumann and Hairston, who arrived at the house separately with one of his friends, went inside.

After a few minutes, Meeks testified, he heard gunshots. He went toward the house. Hairston walked out with a gun pointed at him and told him to back up, he testified. Hairston's friend Dwayne Hairston, who is no relation, was just behind him, Meeks said.

Dwayne Hairston testified that he didn't see the shooting and that he left the house first. He said he heard the shots after he had already walked out the front door.

He left, he said, because Neumann "was acting all crazy" and tried to stab him with a knife he grabbed from a dish drainer in the kitchen sink after Hairston asked if he could have a beer. After less than a minute of holding the knife up to his chest, he testified, Neumann tossed the knife across the room.

Neumann had been drinking that day and had a blood-alcohol content of 0.24 percent, three times the limit at which a person is considered too intoxicated to drive, a forensic toxicologist testified.

Meeks said he went inside and found Neumann lying on the living room floor, bleeding from several gunshot wounds.

He testified that he didn't have a phone, so he went back to the cookout nearby and got Worrell and another friend. They returned to the house, where Worrell and the other man tried CPR but were unable to revive Neumann.

Josh Hairston fled after the shooting, but turned himself in to Martinsville police six days later.

Even after turning himself in, Hairston apparently lied to police. Virginia State Police Special Agent Chuck Eaton testified that Hairston claimed he had thrown his gun into a river. Instead, it had been buried in a friend's yard in Floyd.

Eaton also testified that as he spoke with Hairston, Hairston had tears in his eyes and asked if he could apologize to Neumann's family for shooting him.