‘I wasn’t right.’ Columbus man who killed mom’s neighbor breaks down on witness stand
The Columbus man on trial for killing his mother’s neighbor broke down on the witness stand Thursday as he apologized for the homicide.
“To the victim’s family, I’m sorry, y’all. I wasn’t right,” Cyrus Howard Sr. said to James Richardson Jr.’s widow and other family in the courtroom, where he’s being tried for murder and other charges related to Richardson’s fatal shooting on July 30, 2018,
Called to the stand by defense attorney William Kendrick, Howard said he became fearful and bought a gun after he was shot twice during a 2016 robbery, which led to his “being paranoid, hearing voices, things like this.”
He could give no rational explanation for why he walked from his mother’s Hunter Ridge Circle home to Richardson’s house, called the man to his door and immediately started shooting, pursuing Richardson as the victim tried to get away. Shot six times, Richardson collapsed and died around 8 p.m. in his dining room, where his wife found him an hour later.
He repeated what he told police after the homicide, saying he felt Richardson presented some threat to his mother, a claim police and prosecutors say no evidence supports. “It was irresistible,” he said of his compulsion to shoot Richardson. “How could I let somebody do something to my mama?”
He said his mother was bedridden at the time, having undergone surgery to get a pacemaker, and her poor health made him feel more protective toward her. “I had this sudden passion to protect my mother,” he testified.
After he killed Richardson, he went back to his mother’s home, put his clothes in a bathroom tub and poured bleach over them. When prosecutor Veronica Hansis asked him why he did that, he said, “I’m thinking in my mind, ‘I need to cover my tracks.’”
He gave the Jenning Bryco .380-caliber pistol to an acquaintance, who turned it over to police when Howard told them who had it. A firearms expert testified that ballistics tests matched the gun to bullets found in Richardson’s home.
In interviews with police on Aug. 2 and Aug. 8, 2018, Howard confessed to killing Richardson, saying that a female friend told him Richardson was a threat to his mother, and that he believed Richardson was connected to a violent street gang.
That friend testified Wednesday, saying she never said anything to Howard about his mother, and she did not know Richardson. Detective Stuart Carter, who questioned Howard twice after the shooting, said investigators found no evidence Richardson was associated with a gang.
Howard’s mother took the witness stand after her son, saying she also knew of no threats, and could not say why Howard killed Richardson.
After Thursday morning’s testimony, Hansis and Kendrick made their closing arguments to the jury that afternoon, with Hansis telling jurors they don’t have to decide why Howard killed Richardson, only whether he did so.
Howard has no claim of self-defense, no matter what reason he gives for shooting Richardson, she said.
“If you pick the fight, you can’t claim self-defense,” she said, noting Richardson was unarmed when Howard gunned him down.
Kendrick said Howard acted on a sincere belief, whether it was valid or not.
“There’s no lie in Cyrus,” he said. “At the end of the day, he came in, he told the God-honest truth.... The truth of the matter is, he held this belief in his mind.”
Besides murder, Howard, 52, is on trial for aggravated assault and using a gun to commit a crime. He has not claimed an insanity defense, and a psychological evaluation found him competent to stand trial.
If convicted, he faces life in prison.
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 3:07 PM.