CHARLESTON, W.Va – A jury is set to decide the fate of Barack Williams, the 15-year-old charged with felony murder in connection with the robbery that left Charleston tobacco store clerk Caden Martin dead.
Both the prosecution and defense rested their cases after the final witnesses took the stand, with Williams choosing not to testify.
Judge Maryclaire Akers elected to delay jury instructions and deliberations to Monday due to a lack of air conditioning in the Kanawha County Judicial Annex so as not to subject the jury to deliberations under those conditions.
Thursday’s proceedings began with Charleston Police detective Jonathan Hill on the stand. Hill provided testimony that the Charleston Police Department concluded that Williams and the teen who shot Martin, Bre’juan Williams-Hampton, together committed a shooting and attempted carjacking in the nine days prior to Martin’s murder.
The victim of that shooting, Christina White, took the stand and recounted the events of January 21, in which the two teenagers were accused of getting her attention and then shooting her in the face while she biked on Woodward Avenue.
Williams said she and her boyfriend, Ronald Whaples, were staying in a shelter at the time and rode their bicycles into the area of Woodward Avenue to see a trailer that was for sale. She explained that as they were riding, someone called out, and when she turned around, she was shot in the side of the head.
“I heard somebody holler and say, ‘Hey you!’ and I stopped, and when I went to turn around, they shot me right here, and then they took off,” she said.
Whaples took the stand and corroborated White’s account.
The prosecution’s final witness was Eric Cutlip, who allegedly was confronted by Williams and Williams-Hampton on January 24 in an attempt to steal his car outside Mimi’s on Patrick Street. He said two teens asked him for money as he entered the establishment, and when he returned to his car moments later, one of them pointed a gun at him and demanded the car keys instead.
“I just jokingly said I don’t even have the $20 I thought I had to put in the machine, and that’s when the shorter youth pulled a gun and said, ‘Well, give me the keys to that Mustang then,'” he said.
Hill indicated during his testimony that investigators believe Williams was the one who brandished the gun during the attempted carjacking.
Cutlip testified to jumping into the car and quickly leaving the area, which was also shown in surveillance footage during Hill’s time on the stand.
The prosecution rested after Cutlip’s testimony, at which point Judge Akers decided to send the jury home for the day due to the broken air conditioning that had resulted in the courtroom’s temperature reaching 78 degrees.
A motion by the defense for acquittal was denied by Judge Akers, and closing statements, jury instructions, and deliberations are scheduled to begin at 9 am on Monday.