Trial starts in shotgun slaying of city worker
Three men who had already carjacked a woman at a gas station earlier that day didn’t set out to kill city building inspector Greg “Ziggy” Zyszkiewicz last year, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
“It started out as simply a plan to carjack a guy who had a cool Mustang,” said Assistant District Attorney Michael Lonski. But it turned deadly fast. Zyszkiewicz was found dead behind the wheel, paperwork in one hand, a pen in the other.
Lonski’s remarks came during opening statements in the trial of Deshaun Scott, 19, on charges of reckless homicide, attempted armed robbery, illegal possession of a gun plus other counts related to the earlier carjacking and an effort to flee police that ended in a crash later that day.
Lonski warned jurors they would have to look at a photo of the wound to Zyszkiewicz’s head from the fatal shot to help them decide whether it is reckless to point a sawed-off shotgun at someone’s head.
Scott was 17 the day of the crimes, March 22, 2017. His attorney, Michael Plaisted, told jurors Scott was “the fall guy” in “a rush to judgment” by police under community and government pressure to solve Zyszkiewicz’s killing.
Two others are also charged along with Scott: Qhualun D. Shaw, 18, and Eric J. Smiley, 22. Shaw has agreed to plead guilty and is expected to testify against Scott.
Plaisted told jurors that Shaw is protecting Smiley, who was older, ran the little carjacking crew and owned the shotgun. Smiley is set to go to trial in July.
Plaisted said even Scott’s eventual admission to the shooting — a full demonstration, according to Lonski — doesn’t prove he did it, because at that point, Scott was merely trying to give detectives what they wanted, after they had already decided Scott was the shooter.
The first witness was a police officer who saw Scott driving a teal Toyota Venza later in the day of the shooting. Jurors saw the dashcam video of a chase that reached speeds of 65 mph through city streets before Scott crashed at North 27th Street and West Hope Avenue. Scott is seen jumping out of the sunroof and running off. He was arrested within seconds.
Lonski planned to present evidence of an earlier carjacking at a gas station at North 35th and West Townsend streets. The Venza — which had been stolen three weeks earlier — was being driven by Scott, with Shaw and Smiley as passengers.
As a woman was fueling her 2015 Kia Soul, Smiley approached her with the shotgun and drove off in the Kia about 11 a.m. A couple of hours later, the three men were all riding in the Kia when they saw Zyszkiewicz parked near North 35th and West Cherry streets and decided to take his car next.
Shaw later told police that Scott told his co-defendants that he had to shoot Zyszkiewicz because he started to go for a gun instead of giving up the Mustang immediately when Scott approached the car.
It was about four hours later that both the Kia and the Toyota Venza were spotted and chased down. Smiley was driving the Kia, with Shaw and two others.