Trial in barber’s homicide headed into next week

The trial of two men charged in the 2012 death of Columbus barber Charlie Artis will go into next week, according to the schedule the judge and attorneys agreed upon Thursday.

After a court session shortened to accommodate jurors needing family time, Judge Art Smith III released the jury until Monday, when attorneys are expected to make their closing arguments in the case against Edward Lee and Donteviouse Doleman.

With jurors absent, the judge and attorneys Friday will go over the “charge,” or instructions on how jurors should apply the law to the evidence they’ve heard.

This week prosecutors have called a series of witnesses to testify to their experiences related to a crime spree the two defendants and a third suspect allegedly perpetrated from December 2011 through January 2012, including Artis’ robbery and homicide that Jan. 5 outside his shop in Gunboat Plaza off Milgen Road.

Among those witnesses was an Indian store owner who through an interpreter described a frightening confrontation with a gunman around 10 p.m. Dec. 20, 2011.

The merchant, who was 47 at the time, said he had $500 in his pocket as he left Hometown Grocery, 1159 27th St., and got into his Honda Odyssey in the parking lot, where a gunman abruptly appeared at the front of the van.

As the store owner threw the vehicle into reverse, the gunman started shooting, and continued to fire as the merchant sped away, he said. One bullet broke through the front windshield and another through the rear, penetrating a rear passenger seat headrest and lodging in the dashboard.

Also attesting to the attempted robbery was a young woman who had stopped at a nearby red light. Hearing the gunfire, she looked over and saw the gunman running as the van sped away, she said.

Other witnesses included two women who at gunpoint were robbed of their vehicles, and a third who was raped after Lee, Doleman and Demetrice Scott broke into her home as she emerged from the shower.

Scott, who has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies in exchange for his testimony, admitted on the witness stand that he raped the woman with a gun to her head after Doleman and Lee left the victim’s 23rd Street home on Jan. 15, 2012.

Scott’s testimony gave defense attorneys Jennifer Curry and Will Kirby an opening when he said that a fourth suspect was with the trio during Artis’ fatal shooting.

Scott testified Lee was the gunman who shot Artis through the chest with a .38-caliber revolver, but he also said the fourth man, identified only as Chris, left and returned to the getaway car at the same time as Lee.

Shown an artist sketch of a man witnesses described seeing at the crime scene, Scott said the rendering was Chris, not Lee.

Lead prosecutor Wesley Lambertus made the case that Doleman, Lee and Scott drove a green car to Gunboat Plaza around 3 p.m. that Thursday, cruised slowly past the barber shop and then parked at Stratford Lane Apartments, just east of the shopping plaza.

Wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, Lee was dispatched to rob Artis, whom Lee caught outside the barber shop at Artis’ vehicle, where the barber was making a cellphone call, Lambertus alleged. After robbing and shooting Artis, Lee ran east through a wooded area to the apartments to rejoin Doleman and Scott at the green car, the prosecutor said.

Several witnesses reported seeing a man in a blue hoodie flee the scene, and two of them provided information to a sketch artist for the rendering Scott testified was Chris.

Curry, who represents Lee, now can argue Chris was the one who shot Artis, not her client, so this discrepancy in the prosecution’s account constitutes reasonable doubt as to Lee’s guilt.

Besides that, some witnesses reported the suspect they saw had a dreadlocks, and Lee has short hair, Curry said.

This story was originally published May 19, 2016 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Trial in barber’s homicide headed into next week."