Defense in Columbus murder trial grills witness over conflicting claims, plea deal
Attorneys in the murder trial of four men accused of killing a Columbus rapper over 16 pounds of marijuana spent hours grilling a fifth suspect who made a plea deal to testify for the prosecution.
Eric Randall Spencer Jr. was on the witness stand for much of the day Thursday and Friday, first telling the jury how he and his former codefendants met at a Viking Drive house on April 6, 2018, before driving to a Pizza Hut on Buena Vista Road, where they allegedly took a suitcase of marijuana from Denson’s Jeep Wrangler.
Shot three times in the bank, Denson was found dead in the driver’s seat about 10:30 that night.
Spencer described the other suspects’ alleged roles in the robbery and shooting, saying Tommie Jamal Mullins Jr. arranged the rendezvous with Denson; Johnathon Lemorris Swift drove the rented Hyundai Elantra they used; Tyree Jaquan Smith took the marijuana from Denson’s Jeep; and Dover Bartlett Coppins fired the fatal shots as they drove away.
Spencer said his role was checking Denson for weapons as Coppins held Denson at gunpoint.
For much of Thursday afternoon and all of Friday morning, defense attorneys for those suspects savaged Spencer’s credibility, with each pointing out:
- Spencer initially told police other men committed the crime, though he knew they were not involved.
- After his cohorts now on trial were arrested, Spencer twice wrote letters while in jail, claiming he had lied when he accused them.
- When Spencer was charged in a second 2018 homicide, he blamed it on a friend who spent years in jail charged with murder, before pleading to a misdemeanor.
Columbus attorney Stacey Jackson, representing Mullins, pointed out also that Spencer’s criminal record includes convictions for burglary and robbery from 2009, and he was on probation when he joined in robbing Denson. Though he was a convicted felon who could not legally have a gun, he admitted having a handgun with him that night.
Jackson asked whether Spencer made his plea deal with prosecutors because he faced life without parole, if convicted of murder, and he didn’t want to go back to prison.
“Don’t nobody want to go to prison,” Spencer answered.
He wrote his jail letters absolving the other suspects on Feb. 6 and Feb. 14, 2019, according to attorney Shevon Thomas, who represents Coppins. When Thomas and Jackson questioned him about the letters, he said he wrote them because he feared for his girlfriend’s life.
His girlfriend had just given birth to their child, and they were being threatened, he said. “My baby mama’s house had been shot up two, three days before this,” he told Jackson of writing one of the letters.
Protecting his girlfriend was his primary motive for giving detectives details of Denson’s homicide, because she had rented the Elantra, and police were threatening to charge her as well, he said.
The other shooting
Defense attorneys also questioned Spencer about the other 2018 homicide in which he still faces charges.
That was the April 28 shooting of 74-year-old William Meadows, found dead in the driver’s seat of his car, in his garage on Alta Vista Drive. Spencer is charged with involuntary manslaughter in that case.
But he deflected the blame onto a friend, Raphael Antwan Raymond, telling investigators Raymond shot Meadows while testing a pistol he was thinking of buying, firing it out the window of a car going down Alta Vista Drive.
Arrested for murder on June 25, 2018, Raymond spent 1,311 days in jail before he pleaded guilty this past Jan. 25 to the misdemeanor offense of shooting a gun on a public road. Sentenced to 12 months in jail, he was released with credit for time served.
Raymond’s attorney, Anthony Johnson, told the Ledger-Enquirer this week that he believes Spencer was the one who fired the gun, because Spencer was the one thinking of buying the Canik 9mm, and Spencer texted a photo of the weapon to a friend within minutes of the shooting.
But on the witness stand, Spencer still insisted Raymond fired the pistol. “That was true,” he told attorney William Kendrick, who represents Smith.
He denied he had sought any favorable treatment in the Meadows case, though the defense attorneys claimed he wanted to make a deal to plead in that shooting, too, to serve concurrent prison sentences.
In Denson’s slaying, Spencer pleaded guilty Monday to armed robbery, using a firearm to commit a crime and being a convicted felon with a firearm. Senior Superior Court Judge David Emerson sentenced him to 25 years in prison, with 10 to serve and the rest on probation.
The suspects being tried for murder face life in prison, if the jury convicts them.
Their attorneys queried Spencer about his first claiming others killed Denson, which had prompted police to tell reporters they were searching for the suspects.
Spencer claimed he never told detectives that he knew those men killed Denson, because that wasn’t what the officers asked him. They asked what “the streets” were saying about Denson’s death, he said.
“I told them what the streets were saying,” he told Thomas.
He also said that to attorney Michael Eddings, who represents Swift, when Eddings accused him of lying: “It wasn’t a lie because the streets was saying that,” he said.
The next witness
Spencer finally left the witness stand at 11:45 a.m. Friday. He went back to jail, his charges in Meadows’ death still pending. He will go to prison when that case is resolved.
Acting District Attorney Sheneka Terry next called homicide detective Stuart Carter to the stand, to present a video of Carter questioning Spencer about both the Meadows and Denson homicides.
Carter was recorded telling Spencer detectives could charge his girlfriend in those cases, because she also had rented the Hyundai Veloster that she, Spencer and Raymond were in the day Meadows was shot.
The trial is to continue into next week. Each day about 40 spectators supporting the four defendants come to court to watch.
Here are the defendants charges:
This story was originally published March 25, 2022 at 3:50 PM.