Police initially suspected prosecution witness killed Columbus rapper during robbery
Testimony this week in the trial of four men accused of killing a Columbus rapper to steal 16 pounds of marijuana showed the defendants’ lawyers aren’t the only ones to claim the prosecution’s chief witness pulled the trigger.
Police homicide investigators likewise believed Eric Spencer Jr. shot Branden Denson on April 6, 2018, as Spencer and three others took a suitcase full of marijuana from the back of Denson’s Jeep Wrangler.
Denson was found dead in the driver’s seat about 10:30 p.m. in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut then located at 4236 Buena Vista Road. When police impounded the Jeep and checked it for fingerprints, they found Spencer’s on the rear passenger’s door on the driver’s side, detectives said.
Comparing that evidence to a nearby grocery store’s grainy, blurred security camera video of the robbery and shooting, investigators initially believed Spencer fired the fatal shots through the door on which his fingerprint was found.
Spencer was arrested May 3, 2018. Cpl. Robert Nicholas, the lead detective assigned to Denson’s homicide, testified at Spencer’s preliminary hearing the following May 7 that whoever stood at that door likely shot Denson, and the evidence pointed to Spencer.
Evidence presented Tuesday at the murder trial included a recorded interview involving Nicholas and the victim’s father, Billy Denson, on May 21, 2018. The father died in December 2020.
During that interview, the father asked about any progress in the investigation, and Nicholas told him the fingerprint police found was the first break in the case, and investigators believed Spencer shot Branden Denson.
“Sometimes circumstantial evidence is really, really strong,” he told the father. “Sometimes it’s not.”
Assumption reconsidered
Police later had to re-evaluate their suspicions, first when Nicholas re-examined the evidence, noticing the .40-caliber shell casings ejected from the semi-automatic Glock pistol were found on the ground at the rear of the Jeep. Had the shots been fired from Spencer’s position, they should have landed inside the Jeep, he said.
Then investigators persuaded Spencer to cooperate with them, during a July 2, 2018 interview at police headquarters. That’s when he gave a full account of what happened, and that’s the story prosecutors hope jurors will believe as the trial of Spencer’s cohorts proceeds.
Spencer not only outlined the sequence of events on a marker board, during his police interview, he also re-enacted them for detectives outside the police department four days later, using police vehicles as stand-ins for Denson’s Jeep and the suspects’ Hyundai Elantra.
The suspects now on trial are Tommie Jamal Mullins Jr., Johnathon Lemorris Swift, Tyree Jaquan Smith and Dover Bartlett Coppins, each charged with murder. Spencer also was charged with murder, before he pleaded guilty to armed robbery and gun offenses and agreed to testify.
He earlier testified that he and Smith were together that day in an Elantra that Spencer’s girlfriend had rented when Mullins summoned them to a house on Viking Drive in east Columbus. When they arrived, Mullins told them Swift would drive the Elantra to the Pizza Hut, because they were late meeting Denson for a marijuana deal, and Swift knew shortcuts, he said.
Mullins, who had arranged the rendezvous with Denson, stayed behind, Spencer said.
When they got to the restaurant, Swift parked at the driver’s side of Denson’s Jeep, and Coppins got out, and went to the passenger’s side of the Jeep until Denson let him in, the witness said.
Those in the Elantra heard an argument coming from the Jeep, so Spencer got out, went to the rear passenger’s door on the driver’s side of the Jeep and knocked, he said. When he opened the door, Coppins was holding Denson at gunpoint and told Spencer to check around the driver’s seat for weapons, Spencer said, so he opened the driver’s side door to look.
Smith got out of the Elantra, grabbed Denson’s suitcase of marijuana and put it in the Elantra’s trunk, Spencer said. Coppins then got out of the Jeep and got into the rear, passenger’s side seat of the Elantra, yelling at Denson not to “reach for anything” as Swift began to back the Elantra out of the parking space, the witness said.
Spencer left both driver’s side doors of the Jeep standing open as he ran back to the Elantra, and Coppins fired four shots as the Elantra backed up and turned toward the parking lot exit, Spencer said.
No bullets hit the exterior of Denson’s Jeep, police said. Three went through the open rear door, passed through Denson’s seat and hit him in the back, investigators said.
A medical examiner testified that one bullet’s trajectory through Denson’s body was left to right and upward.
Detective Stuart Carter, who also questioned Spencer, said that trajectory does not match the angle that the bullets penetrated the car seat, and he thought it likely that Denson bent down when the shooting started, and that’s why one bullet appeared to go up through his body.
The evidence police found at the scene, along with the blurred video from the neighboring store, support Spencer’s version, Carter and Nicholas testified. Carter said Spencer could not have been the shooter because he was never in the right position to fit the trajectory of the bullets and the spots where the cartridge casings lay in the parking lot.
But defense attorneys for the suspects on trial pressed the detectives on their earlier assumptions, alleging Spencer killed Denson, and then blamed the others to escape accountability.
Spencer repeatedly lied to police during earlier interviews, they said, so police should not have considered him credible.
“Everyone lies in murder investigations, in any investigation, I should say,” Carter testified under questioning by Mullins’ attorney, Stacey Jackson.
The prosecution also intends to introduce evidence tying the other suspects to the homicide through cell phone records, but that witness has not been called to the stand yet.