Jury to decide fate of 4 accused murderers

The four men on trial for the 2013 fatal shooting of David Scott will have to wait through the weekend to learn their fate.

After almost five hours of closing arguments Friday, Judge William Rumer released jurors until 9:15 a.m. Monday, when he will read them specifics of the law on which they must base their verdict.

Prosecutors claim Scott’s fatal shooting around 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 19, 2013, at the intersection of Seventh Street and Coolidge Avenue, was the final act of a crime spree involving five suspects: Jayln Trevonta Dixon, Donald Rydell Fair, Christopher Deshawn Pender, Tyrecquiss Shaewaun “Shae-Shae” Wells and Christopher Don Whitaker.

Only four are on trial because Dixon made a deal to plead guilty to reduced charges in exchange for his testimony.

The rest are accused of firing nearly 30 rounds from four guns at the white Chevrolet Impala that Scott had borrowed from his cousin Bryant “Diamond Earl” Early, a gambler known to carry $2,000–$3,000 on him for card-playing money.

Dixon, who told the court he was driving the stolen pickup truck the suspects were in, testified it was Wells’ idea to rob Early, and the five were en route to a gambling house when Wells saw Early’s Impala, and told Dixon to stop the truck.

The pickup blocked the Impala as Wells, wearing a mask and carrying a 9-mm pistol with an extended clip, left the truck and approached the driver’s side of the car, Dixon said.

Scott had just gone to a Brown Avenue store with his friend Eric Morris, who was in the front passenger’s seat. Morris said Scott told him to get down, then put the Impala in reverse. When Scott backed up, Wells started shooting, and the other gunmen starting firing their weapons, too, Dixon said.

Scott was trapped when he backed into a tree. A bullet that fragmented as it went through the Impala’s windshield went through his skull, over his left eye. He died later at the hospital.

Each defense attorney tried to distance his or her client from the shooting while reminding jurors that Dixon, the prosecution’s primary witness, repeatedly lied to police before giving investigators the account that incriminated his codefendants.

Prosecutors emphasized similarities in Scott’s shooting and that of a marijuana dealer the four suspects are accused of shooting during an attempted robbery earlier on the day Scott was shot.

The same tan Ford F-150 pickup, stolen around 3 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2013, and later used in a burglary on Cheyenne Drive, was employed in each assault, as were two guns, a .45-caliber handgun and a .223-caliber rifle, authorities said. The weapons were never recovered, but ballistics tests on shell casing from each crime scene showed the same guns were used.

Prosecutors said Whitaker set the drug dealer up for the robbery, and then Wells, Dixon and Pender took the stolen truck to meet their target at Baltic Court, where Wells parked the truck out of sight. When the dealer arrived about 8 p.m., Pender and Dixon rushed the truck, and fired as the dealer sped away, hitting him in the stomach, said the prosecution.

Fair is not charged in that incident.

At Scott’s shooting, police found evidence that two more guns, both 9 mm pistols, were fired at the Impala Scott drove. Dixon testified that he was driving the truck then, and never fired a weapon.

Pender was wounded by “friendly fire” in the barrage of bullets, and Whitaker later had to take him to St. Francis Hospital, where police came to question him, authorities said.

In his closing argument Friday, Assistant District Attorney Ray Daniel said the suspects together planned and executed Scott’s assault, and together they shared the guilt.

“It was one for all and all for one in the conspiracy to commit these crimes,” he said.

Whitaker’s attorney, Greg Johnson, said his attorney didn’t set up the marijuana dealer’s robbery because the dealer had told Whitaker he had no marijuana to sell. Though Dixon claimed Whitaker was the one who accidentally shot Pender, the angle of the bullet indicated Dixon most likely fired that round, Johnson said.

Even if Dixon was in the driver’s seat of the pickup, he could have stood in the cab’s sun roof and fired, the attorney said. The bullet entered Pender’s right buttock and exited his left thigh, a downward angle, he said.

“There’s no evidence my client did anything more than sit in a stolen vehicle,” Johnson said.

Susan Henderson, who represents Pender, said her client had no idea his cohorts were going to kill Scott that night. “There’s no way he could have had that foresight,” she said. She called him “a recovering car thief” and “a recovering burglar,” but said he was not a murderer.

She argued Dixon shot Pender during an argument at another location, and Pender was not even present when Scott was shot.

Fair’s attorney Clark Adams said his client wasn’t at Seventh Street and Coolidge Avenue, either, and prosecutors failed to prove otherwise. All they had to go on was Dixon’s testimony, and Dixon so often had lied that he was not credible.

Richard Hagler, who represents Wells, similarly attacked Dixon’s character, saying Dixon didn’t care for the others and had tried to shift all the blame to them.

Dixon was unhappy with them because he’d been shot in a dispute days earlier, and they hadn’t taken him to the hospital the way they took Pender.

“He doesn’t know them that well, and he’s mad at them,” the attorney said, noting Dixon got a good deal for his testimony, his murder charge reduced to voluntary manslaughter.

Dixon’s testimony linking his codefendants to Scott’s death is insufficient to find them guilty, Hagler said: “You can’t convict of guilt by association.”

The prosecution must prove each element of each crime that each defendant is charged with, and it failed to meet that burden, having only Dixon’s testimony to rely on: “There are a bunch of reasons for doubt in this case,” he said.

Christopher Williams, who led the prosecution team, said he welcomed that burden of proof: “I don’t shy away from it. I own it,” he said. “We have met our burden and then some.”

He said the defendants had engaged in “lawlessness, out of order, terrorizing the streets of Columbus,” and they had to be stopped.

“We should be able to go out into the street and go to the store without being gunned down,” Williams said.

Here are the charges the jury must consider next week:

In Scott’s death, each defendant faces charges of malice or intentional murder, felony murder for allegedly killing Scott while committing the felony of aggravated assault, aggravated assault, criminal attempt to commit a felony for allegedly trying to rob Scott, aggravated assault on Scott’s passenger, using a firearm to commit a crime, and theft by receiving stolen property for the 2003 Ford F-150 truck.

In the drug dealer’s shooting, Pender, Wells and Whitaker are charged with aggravated assault and armed robbery. Pender and Wells are charged with using a firearm to commit a felony. Pender also faces charges of falsely reporting a crime and making false statements to police for allegedly lying to detectives who questioned him Sept. 19 and 23.

For allegedly burning the stolen truck after Scott’s homicide, Fair is accused of tampering with evidence and third-degree arson.

For initiating a high-speed chase as police pursued and captured him Sept. 24, Wells is charged with trying to elude police. Because of previous burglary convictions, he also is charged with two counts of being a felon with a firearm.

This story was originally published March 11, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Jury to decide fate of 4 accused murderers."