Sandra Dales was either a domestic violence victim who killed in self-defense or a heartless killer who made her husband disappear.
Those were the two portraits of Dales presented during opening arguments Wednesday in her trial for the Nov. 23, 2019, murder of Edward “Eddie” Cruey.
Cruey spoke to family members in Virginia several times a week, so when he didn’t call for Thanksgiving, they were concerned, Assistant Augusta District Attorney D.K. Huff said.
By Dec. 17, they came to Augusta to look for him. Dales told them he’d packed a bag, got some money and left, Huff said.
That didn’t sound like Cruey, so they filed a missing person report and canvassed their Glenn Hills neighborhood, hospitals, homeless shelters and even conducted an aerial search.
The missing person case made headlines as family members reported seeing vultures overhead and a foul odor while the investigation was ongoing.
There was no break in the case until Jan. 31, when Dales confessed to a neighbor, Huff said.
During an argument, Cruey was armed with a knife, and Dales picked up a metal rod and struck him in the head several times, she told the neighbor. Then, she buried his body in the yard.
Their lives weren’t perfect, but Dales went too far, Huff said.
“Did she have to kill him? Did she have to bury him in the front yard, and tell people ‘I don’t know where he is?’” Huff said.
An ‘instant connection’
Defense attorney Jennifer Cross painted a vivid picture of a long-term victim of domestic violence for whom law enforcement had failed.
Opening arguments are not evidence, and jurors are expected to decide Dales’ guilt or innocence based on witness testimony and evidence presented during the trial.
“Sandra Dales was trapped in a cycle of manipulation, abuse and fear for almost a decade,” Cross said.
Dales, 57, and Cruey, 55, met at Hephzibah High School but lost touch until they reconnected on Facebook in 2011.
The felt an “instant connection,” Cross said. He made her laugh, and she was impressed by his intelligence. Dales was “willing to dedicate her entire life to him,” she said.
Cruey started taking Dales with him on long-haul truck driving trips. “In reality, it was Edward’s way of separating Sandra from her family,” Cross said.
He first hit Dales on one of those trips, she said. He bought flowers and apologized, while Dales blamed herself for upsetting him, Cross said.
After a bad crash in 2017, the couple moved in permanently with Dales’ mother, who later died of Alzheimer’s, she said.
Dales adopted a pregnant dog, Mattie, but soon the dog and her puppies became a target, Cross said. The two times Dales called 911 in 2019 were because Cruey was trying to kill her dogs, she said.
He was never arrested, and the second time she called 911, “turned on the charm” and managed to get Cruey arrested instead for domestic violence, but the violence against her continued, Cross said.
“Sandra was being punched, kicked, slapped, choked more often than she had before.” And the day of the homicide, Dales couldn’t hear out of one ear due to Cruey “boxing her ears” the night before, Cross said.
During the incident, Cruey, armed with a knife, taunted Dales when she picked up a horseshoe stake, described Cross. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?” he said. She swung and missed. “What are you going to do now?”
Cruey made Dales feel “there was nothing she could do that moment but die,” but she resisted, and struck him “until he quit trying to attack her,” Cross said.
Father, neighbor testify
The first prosecution witness to testify was Cruey’s father, Jerry Cruey. Family members visited Augusta several times a year, often staying in a camper at Clark’s Hill, he said.
Eddie Cruey worked in Nascar and drag racing before getting a commercial driver’s license around 2008. The tractor-trailer crash injured him so severely he could no longer drive a truck, Jerry Cruey said.
He used an insurance settlement to set up a workshop with a table saw and other tools. At one point, he severed three fingers with the saw, but doctors were able to reattach them, Jerry Cruey said.
During their last phone call, Cruey thanked his father for a birthday gift of $200. The couple seemed excited because Dales had just received a first social security disability payment, Jerry Cruey said.
The second prosecution witness was the neighbor, James Whittington, to whom Dales reportedly confessed.
“I killed Eddie,” she’d said, Whittington testified. “At that point I realized it was going to be a long night.”
Dales explained that the couple was arguing and Cruey pulled a knife and was approaching her with it, Whittington said. They circled around the kitchen and carport area, where she grabbed the horseshoe pole, he said.
Once he was dead, Cruey “placed his body in a large sack, like a really big black garbage sack, and sprinkled lime from the garden across him,” he said.
On cross-examination, Whittington agreed with defense attorney Jay Kim that Dales had changed “very much” since she met Cruey.
Cruey was known to wear no shirt and carry a three-foot machete around in the yard, Whittington said. He longer resembled the photos shown of him, he said.
Whittington said he’d never seen Cruey hit Dales, but heard him berate her “in a condescending way.”
“Sandra had told me of several instances where there had been physical contact,” he said.
Kim asked why Whittington had never seen Cruey hit Dales.
“That’s inappropriate. I’m not going to stand around and let something like that happen, without trying to deescalate the situation,” he said.
He had, however, seen Cruey hit the dog, Mattie.
“He grabbed the dog by the collar, twisted it and punched her a couple of times,” Whittington said.
The trial continues Thursday in Richmond County Superior Court.
