Testimony continues
By John Joyce
Published in News on July 16, 2015 1:46 PM
The co-defendant, the surviving victim and a slew of forensic analysts all testified for the state in the murder trial of Henry Calvin Jones in Wayne County Superior Court Wednesday.
The victim later chased one of the state's other witnesses out of the courtroom and down the corridor, screaming that she had lied on the stand.
Bailiffs intervened and no one was injured.
Montrel O'Neal, 21, took the stand in Wayne County Superior Court Wednesday, pointed directly at Calvin Henry Jones and said he killed Charles Ray Morgan III, April 17, 2010.
To prove Jones is guilty, the state need only prove he participated in the act that led to the victim's death.
"It's called acting in concert," defense attorney George E. Kelly explained.
If someone commits a felony and somebody dies as a result of the commission of that crime, everybody involved is guilty of first-degree murder, he said.
Kelly used the analogy of a bank robbery and said the guy who goes in and shoots the teller is guilty, but so is everyone who planned or helped execute the robbery.
"The guy who sits at home having plotted with the little maps that they draw on the piece of paper on the kitchen table is guilty of first-degree murder," he said.
O'Neal, who pleaded guilty in October 2014 to second-degree murder and agreed to testify against Jones in exchange for a lighter sentence, said the murder resulted from a botched robbery.
Four men and four women planned to rob two men after a night at the club.
Charles Ray Morgan III, 26, died of his injuries that night. Brian Christopher McLaurin, 31, suffered eight wounds from four gunshots and spent weeks in the hospital. He spent another few months in a wheelchair and nearly a year on crutches.
He never saw the face of any of the men who shot him and who killed his best friend, he said.
O'Neal admitted to firing the shot the medical examiner later ruled the fatal wound.
Prosecutors also called three witnesses from the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation's Crime Lab -- a drug expert, a blood analyst and a DNA analyst -- to the witness stand.
Leafy material found at the scene proved to be marijuana and pills found nearby were a synthetic form of MDMA or Ecstasy.
Blood at the scene matched only the victim. And DNA matched one of the victims and a known acquaintance, but was never compared to the DNA of the suspect or anyone else named in the case.
Fingerprints collected by the Goldsboro Police Department also matched only the victims.
Kelly said he hoped the jury was paying close attention. He feels more than enough reasonable doubt has been raised to free his client.
"If you have three or four out of 12, that's enough," he said.
Kelly said he is not interested in a hung jury.
"I'm going for an acquittal here," he said.
The murder took place in the parking lot of the apartment community at Day Circle formerly known as Courtyard, Green Acres, now called the Grand at Day Circle. It is known locally and has been referred to often throughout the trial as "The Jungle."
O'Neal testified that he and three other men -- Malcolm Russell, Kevin Barksdale and Rakeem Heath -- were hanging out with four women at a Day Circle apartment April 16, 2010. The men stashed their guns, as they usually did when they were relaxing, in a closet inside the apartment, he said.
The women -- Pam Lee, Lydia Snow, Nikia Maye and Lakyla Sanders -- went to the club that night. The four men stayed behind and drank, took Ecstasy and smoked marijuana, O'Neal testified.
Ms. Sanders later testified to the same.
While at one of the clubs, two of the women met and spoke with the victims and invited them back to Day Circle.
O'Neal testified that Nikia Maye, known as KiKi Maye, called Malcolm Russell and told him to get the other men ready.
"KiKi Maye called Malc (Russell) and said she was bringing some dude back with stacks of money," O'Neal testified.
"We were going to rob them," he said.
O'Neal and Ms. Sanders gave very different accounts of what happened when the girls and the victims returned to Day Circle. The facts show that the four men surrounded the car Morgan and McLaurin were sitting in, shooting erupted and Morgan was killed.
O'Neal said Jones wasn't initially part of the plan but rather invited himself along. At first the men told him he could not join in; he didn't have a gun.
"'I stay strapped,'" O'Neal testified was Jones' response.
"He pulled out a gun like a cowboy gun, a big cowboy gun," O'Neal said.
Ms. Sanders testified that she saw Jones but he was among a whole host of people standing around outside. She said it is a common occurrence for people to be hanging out -- even at 3 o'clock in the morning -- in Day Circle.
She said she didn't know about the plan to rob the men, she does not know who shot whom and she only learned about the details of it all as she sat in the courtroom waiting to testify.
As she finished testifying and was released from the courtroom, McLaurin stood up and walked out after her. His voice could be heard inside the courtroom calling after her as she went down the hall to the stairs of the Wayne County Courthouse. He said she had lied on the stand. Bailiffs rushed into the hall and kept the two parties separated until Ms. Sanders was out of the building.
Due to a scheduling conflict there will be no testimony today. The medical examiner who conducted Morgan's autopsy is due to testify Friday after which the state said it will rest its case. The defense has but one witness -- if he chooses to testify -- the defendant, Jones.
The trial resumes Friday at 9:30 a.m.