Man gets 10 years in prison for stabbing outside Rock Hill bar

By Christy Mullins - cmullins@heraldonline.com

An alleged motorcycle gang member was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for stabbing a man twice his size in the chest over a parking space.

Craig Stephens Furcron, 50, “plunged” a knife into the chest of 35-year-old Christopher Shaver at Palmetto Sports Bar in Rock Hill in mid-June, prosecutors told the jury. Shaver survived, but he suffered a gash several inches long and bled profusely before officers arrived, prosecutors said.

Furcron was convicted of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and received the maximum sentence.

Defense attorney Chris Wellborn said Furcron, a 5-foot, 5-inch man who friends know as “Shorty,” was bullied to defend himself with the weapon against a man twice his size and half his age.

“He was the smallest person in the bar and the easiest to pick on,” Wellborn said. He added that Furcron had been kicked in his head and ribs before the stabbing.

The bar fight turned deadly in the early morning of June 18, after both men drank at separate birthday parties around the pool table and on the outside smoking deck at the pub at Firetower and Porter roads.

Around 1 a.m., Shaver walked out to his Toyota Tundra to go home. He had to work the next day, and his wife and 2-year-old were waiting for him at home, he told the jury.

But his truck was blocked by Furcron's Ford pickup, Shaver said in court, and Furcron, who was standing nearby, refused to move the vehicle.

“He didn't look like he looks today,” said Shaver, pointing to the defendant, who had a clean shave and a short haircut. “He had a bushy face and hair real long.”

Shaver told the jury he went inside to ask bar managers to help with the situation, and when he came back out, another man — Ray Clark, a friend of Furcron's — ran toward him “with fists balled up.”

They began hitting each other, Shaver said: “I wasn't even out the door good.”

Moments later, Furcron came at Shaver with a lock-blade knife in his hand, swinging “like a punch motion,” and stabbed him in the chest.

Furcron threatened bystanders by warning that he was a member of Hell's Angels and then fled, assistant prosecutor E.B. Springs said. Deputies found Furcron 20 minutes later.

Shaver ran to a parking lot across the street, where another man propped him on the tailgate of a truck and put pressure on the wound until police came, he said.

One of the first responders, York County Sheriff's Deputy James Alridge, testified that several people waved him to the parking lot where Shaver was lying conscious but shirtless and bleeding, with “a big huge gash in his chest.”

A 911 caller had given police a vehicle description and tag number of the attacker, Alridge said. He traced the information to Furcron and found the knife in a trash can at the bar. It was shown as evidence.

Police found “indications of motorcycle gang affiliation” in Furcron's truck, Springs said. The jury wasn't aware of the gang affiliation during the trial.

Furcron has a previous conviction for possession with intent to distribute cocaine in 1990, Springs said. The other man, Ray Clark, who fought Shaver, was convicted earlier this year of assault and battery.