Several altercations took place inside Awful Arthur's restaurant in Salem the night of Oct. 10, and neither Shaun Wallace Scott nor Zane Andrew Blankenship took part in any of them.

And yet after closing time early the next morning, 23-year-old Blankenship lay dead in the parking lot, struck by Scott's Jeep, and authorities charged Scott with murder.

As Scott's trial continued Wednesday in Salem Circuit Court, the sequence of events leading up to Blankenship's death became clearer -- but the question of why he and Scott wound up in a scuffle just minutes before the hit-and-run fatality remained unanswered.

The stances that the prosecution and defense are taking on the events of that night also came into sharper focus during Wednesday's proceedings.

When Salem prosecutors finished presenting their evidence, defense lawyer Deborah Caldwell-Bono asked Judge Clifford Weckstein to dismiss or reduce the charges of first-degree murder, malicious wounding, attempted malicious wounding and felony destruction of property charges against her client. Scott also faces a charge of felony hit-and-run.

Caldwell-Bono argued that prosecutors had not proven Scott had any intent to do harm to anyone as he sped out of the parking lot. Scott was in a panic, "flying to get out of there" after being attacked and threatened, she said. "It was clear he was not in control. He was acting out of fear."

She said Zane Blankenship "unfortunately was in the path of the vehicle," and earlier in the trial she called the fact that Blankenship had shoved and cursed Scott moments before an ironic coincidence.

Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Bowers countered the defense argument by saying that if Scott was fleeing, he had numerous other ways to get out of the parking lot but instead zoomed in his Jeep at full speed toward the crowded part of the parking lot with his headlights off.

"He goes the longest route. That's where his target is," Bowers said. "He set the deadly weapon in motion." He called Scott's actions a "coward's punch," arguing it couldn't be coincidence that Scott's Jeep struck Blankenship and grazed Blankenship's older brother.

Weckstein allowed the charges to stand unchanged.

The mounting testimony from the prosecution's witnesses, as well as a handful of evidence presented by the defense, established a clear sequence of events in the hours leading up to Blankenship's death.

According to testimony, Zane Blankenship, his older brother Coby Blankenship, their half brother Mike Henry and three friends went to Awful Arthur's that night after a Salem High School football game, in part to celebrate Coby Blankenship's release from jail.

A Roanoke County resident named Roy Crowe was already at the bar. Testimony indicates that some animosity already existed between Crowe and the brothers, and that Scott and Crowe knew each other and were on friendly terms.

Testimony from Coby Blankenship and his friends has painted Crowe as the instigator of three or four verbal altercations that night inside the bar. Crowe testified Wednesday afternoon, essentially agreeing on the number of altercations but stating that Coby Blankenship and some of his other friends were more actively aggressive.

All witnesses seem to agree that neither Zane Blankenship nor Shaun Scott said a cross word to anyone inside the bar.

Outside the bar, for unexplained reasons, evidence from three witnesses who were part of neither group indicates that Zane Blankenship and Scott had words, and Blankenship began shoving Scott, who did not shove back. Eventually, Blankenship shoved Scott up against a vehicle and walked off.

So far, there has been no disagreement among witnesses as to what followed. Scott got into his Jeep, backed out at high speed and drove around parked cars, the Jeep listing as he rounded a turn.

Numerous witnesses have said the Jeep corrected, came straight at Zane Blankenship at a speed of at least 30 mph and struck him hard enough to send him flying high into the air. The Jeep then glanced off a Salem police cruiser that had just pulled into the lot, hit a parked truck, and left its fender and license plate behind as it headed toward Wildwood Road, where the vehicle was later found abandoned.

The defense will continue presenting Scott's side of the case today.