Mother of victim testifies in murder trial
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on April 14, 2017 9:19 AM
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Tyrell Clemons, center, defense attorney for Alquan Hill, speaks with potential jurors during day two of jury selection Tuesday at Wayne County Courthouse. Clemons is hoping to prevent additional video footage from being entered into evidence.
Renee Thompson took the stand in Wayne County Superior Court Thursday to identify for jurors the body of her slain daughter.
She then shared details about the last time she saw Shanekqua Adriana Thompson alive before finding out she had been killed.
Testimony resumed Thursday in the first-degree murder trial of Alquan Hill, one of six men charged in the Oct. 31, 2104, shooting death of Thompson, 21.
Thompson was a passenger in a van ambushed by men in two vehicles who opened fire on the van's four occupants at the intersection of Sixth and Humphrey streets. Thompson was killed and another passenger, Deonte Morrison, 22, was injured.
Investigators allege Hill drove one of the ambush vehicles and a co-defendant, Cequon Aredale Phillips, took the stand Thursday to say so.
Phillips pleaded guilty on Jan. 5, 2017, to accessory after the fact to second-degree murder and, in exchange for his testimony, expects to receive a sentence of between 58 and 82 months in prison.
Hill is charged with first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and discharging a firearm into occupied property in conveyance and operation.
Phillips described for the court how he, Hill and six other men came together the night of the murder. Of the eight people allegedly involved in the killing, only six had been identified publicly by the start of the trial.
Two men since identified in testimony ---- and only by their street names, "Spaz," and "First 48" ---- have not been charged. Phillips said he and his brother, Rahmel Philips, along with Hill, Spaz, First 48, Anthony Graham, Davine Carr and Joshua Collins rode to Goldsboro from Kinston in two separate vehicles.
Collins has also since pleaded guilty in an agreement with the district attorney and is expected to testify. The other three defendant's ---- Rahmel Philips, Carr and Graham ---- have yet to stand trial.
Phillips said the eight men were going to Goldsboro to confront who they felt was responsible for shooting into Graham's car two days earlier. They drove a Ford Expedition and a Honda Accord.
Those vehicles match both the testimony given earlier by Morrison and the vehicles seen on video footage taken from the home of a residence near the crime scene.
Morrison testified the two cars the eight men were in staked out the van Thompson, himself and two other men were in at McDonald's on Wayne Memorial Drive before the shooting happened a short distance away at the intersection of Sixth Street and Humphrey Street off of Wayne Memorial Drive. When the van pulled out, so did the other two cars and at least one person opened fire. The van crashed into a tree stand off of Humphrey Street and the shooting continued.
Some of the men exited their cars, walked to toward the van and continued to fire. The shooting stopped and the cars pulled away.
Morrison was wounded, and Thompson lay dead in the back of the van.
John Butts, the doctor who conducted the autopsy on Thompson, also testified Thursday.
Butts said Thompson was struck by three bullets, which caused her death.
One bullet hit her right shoulder, entered her chest, ripped through her lung and lodged itself in her heart.
Another hit her right side, tearing through her bowels before stopping on her left side.
A third hit her left side and damaged her kidney.
All three bullets were lodged in her body.
Nearly 50 spent shell casings and two live rounds were found at the scene, and 12 shell casings were found inside the van Thompson died in, testimony showed.
Cpl. Steven Powers with the Goldsboro Police Department testified that he did not know when the shell casings got into the van.
The caliber bullets recovered from the scene were 9 millimeter, .380 caliber, .45 caliber and 7.62x39 caliber shell casings.
Each different caliber was concentrated in a different area of the crime scene.
During Phillips' testimony near the end of the court day, prosecutor Assistant District Attorney Davis Weddle moved to introduce surveillance video from gas stations and the McDonald's on Wayne Memorial Drive.
Hill's defense attorney Tyrell Clemons objected to the motion.
The surveillance footage is taken from a McDonald's at 2002 Wayne Memorial Drive, a Kangaroo gas station that was across from the restaurant at the time and a Handy Mart gas station on U.S. 70 East.
The court then dismissed the jury for the day around 4:20 p.m. and went into an evidentiary hearing to decide whether or not the gas station and restaurant surveillance videos would be submitted to the jury.
The hearing did not finish before court recessed for the day at 5 p.m.