Columbus man on trial for killing half-brother recalls birthday party shootout
The Columbus man on trial for killing his half-brother at a birthday party took the witness stand Tuesday to give his account of how Demetrius Williams was gunned down outside the defendant’s Bernard Drive apartment.
Roger Thomas claims he had to shoot Williams in self-defense when Williams wounded one of his party guests and shot at him on Dec. 4, 2015, after pointing the gun at others and threatening to kill everyone present.
Thomas said Williams and another guest, Roderick Phillips, had been drinking and using the drug “molly,” or ecstasy, when the two became belligerent and combative at Thomas’ 435 Bernard Drive apartment, where people had gathered to celebrate Thomas’ upcoming birthday.
Thomas said people responding to a Facebook invitation started arriving about 1:30 p.m., and at first everyone got along well as they drank, smoked marijuana and showed off their guns. “Everything seemed cool. Everything seemed normal,” he said.
But that changed after Thomas and Williams left to get molly and then used the drug when they got back, Thomas said: Phillips started “getting kind of aggressive” with another guest, and had to be pulled off, and then he “wouldn’t stop,” Thomas added: “He did it again right after that.”
Thomas ordered everyone to leave his apartment, and went in to shower and get dressed to go to a nightclub. Around 10 p.m., a guest knocked on his door and told him Williams and Phillips were fighting outside, he said.
When he looked out, he saw the two men down on the front porch, with Phillips on his back and Williams, holding a revolver, on top of him, he said.
The guest who had come to warn him, Jeffrey Flakes, broke up the fight, but Williams fired two shots into the apartment as Phillips ran to the bathroom. Williams then pointed the gun at other guests, saying, “I’ll kill all y’all,” Thomas said.
He said he was stunned that his half-brother, born of the same mother with different fathers, would shoot into his home: “I could not believe my brother was shooting in my house.”
Flakes escorted Williams outside to a waiting car as Thomas tried to keep Phillips inside the apartment, at one point taking a gun away from Phillips and setting it aside, he said.
When Thomas stepped back outside, he expected to see the gray car that Williams had got into was gone, but it was still there, and Williams got out of it calling for Phillips to come outside, he said.
He felt someone bump him, and saw Phillips, with his hands up to show he was unarmed, walking into the yard toward Williams, saying, “It’s all love, bro. It’s all love.” Unfazed, Williams pointed the gun at Phillips again, saying, “I’ll kill you,” Thomas said.
Phillips retreated toward the apartment, lifting his shirt to show he had no gun, but Williams followed, repeating his threats before pointing the gun and shooting Phillips in the leg, Thomas said. Phillips ran to a neighbor’s porch.
Thomas said Williams then turned the gun on him, and fired a shot that punched through his shirt and sweater, but hit no flesh. That’s when Thomas pulled his .38-caliber and shot once or twice at Williams, he said.
After he fired, Thomas heard gunshots coming from around the side of his apartment, and decided to flee, he said. He went in, locked his front door and ran out the back, going to a relative’s home and giving his gun to a woman he has not seen since, he said: “To this day I still cannot get in touch with her.”
Williams died later from his wounds. He was 32 years old, and had been living in Phenix City.
Investigators said he was hit by four bullets: Two passed through his body, and two lodged. Of the two police recovered, one was a .38-caliber and the other a 9-millimeter.
Thomas was photographed that night holding a 9mm semi-automatic pistol with an extended clip. He said he’d just bought the gun, but other witnesses said they’d seen him with it before.
Under prosecutor Wesley Lambertus’ cross-examination, Thomas said he has owned several guns at different times: “I’m not a felon, so I kind of collect guns.” Yet police seized only one firearm at the scene: A .380-caliber handgun they found in the next-door neighbor’s apartment, where Phillips fled when he was wounded.
Phillips said he went inside that apartment after the gunfire stopped, and got into a fight when the neighbor tried to force him to leave. The neighbor came out when police arrived and reported that Phillips had assaulted him, and officers going to investigate were shoved aside as Phillips burst out. He twice was Tased before they could restrain him.
Like Thomas, Phillips also was charged in Williams’ death, initially, but before the trial began, he negotiated a plea in which his murder charge was dropped. He pleaded guilty to assaulting the neighbor, and agreed to testify. He’s to be sentenced later.
Thomas blamed the violence on Williams and Phillips and the drug they’d used. Williams was known to be ill-tempered and reckless, he said: “I’ve seen my brother pull a gun on a lot of people,” he said. “If he’s very, very mad, he’s going to pull that trigger on you. He’s a hothead. He’s very hotheaded…. He was very angry that night.”
Phillips also acted enraged, he said: “He was just out of his mind at that time.”
Thomas said that after Williams shot Phillips, Williams started pointing the pistol at others, and Thomas could hear it clicking, the sound of the hammer hitting empty cylinders on the revolver. Then it fired the bullet that passed through Thomas’ clothing.
“I thought I was hit,” he said. He told Williams he’d been shot, and Williams replied, “I don’t give a f—k,” and started pulling the trigger again. “That’s when I proceeded to take a shot back,” he said, later adding, “I’ve been shot before. I really don’t want to go through that again.”
He denied having fired a 9-millimeter, and could not identify the person he said he heard shooting from the side of his apartment: “I don’t know his real name.”
Defense attorney Stacey Jackson has argued that Thomas under Georgia law was authorized to shoot Williams in self-defense. Thomas had “no duty to retreat” once Williams shot at him, Jackson told jurors.
Lambertus noted other witnesses have disputed Thomas’ version of events, saying they never saw Williams with a gun.
Besides the same father, Thomas and Williams had other family connections: Thomas has three children with one of Flakes’ sisters, and Williams shares a child with another of Flakes’ siblings, Thomas said.
Besides murder, Thomas is charged with aggravated assault and using a gun to commit a crime. His trial resumes Wednesday in Judge Arthur Smith III’s Government Center courtroom.
This story was originally published February 12, 2019 at 4:27 PM.