Witnesses in murder trial claim defendant made admissions

Case continues in death of woman in 2011

Though the case lacks physical evidence, wit- ness testimony against Raymond Daniel Posey III, accused of murdering a woman in Nanjemoy in 2011, alleges that he made admissions of guilt to multiple people, including friends and an inmate housed in the same section of jail.

Prosecutors say Posey, 24, and Darrayl John Wilson, 25, both of Nanjemoy, killed Crystal Keyone Anderson, 29, and dumped her body

down a ravine near Purse State Park in what they believe was a drug-relat- ed robbery. Wilson’s trial is scheduled for late February.

Aside from her mother, who said Anderson stopped by her Landover home briefly that night, witnesses said they last saw Anderson leaving a Nanjemoy house party with Posey and Wilson on July 26, 2011. The state believes the defendants had driven Anderson from the party to Prince George’s County, where she picked up PCP from her supplier, a drug she regularly sold and used.

When the three returned to the area later that night, Posey and Wilson allegedly shot her to death and threw her body over a guardrail and down a steep hill, prosecutors said. The state said Anderson’s death squashed a $2,000 drug debt Posey’s brother had owed to her.

Anderson remained missing until Jan. 2, 2012, when an unsuspecting hiker stumbled upon a boot with her leg bone protruding — a scene he said is forever imprint- ed in his mind, court proceedings showed. After days of combing the area with specialized K-9s, police recovered more skeletal remains, though large segments of her body remained missing. Her identity was confirmed about a month later by a forensic anthropologist. However, of the skeletal remains recovered, none appeared to have sustained any injury, and the cause of death was ruled as undetermined.

Posey was arrested by police at his family’s Nanjemoy home in March 2015, indicted by a grand jury, according to court records. Wilson was subsequently indicted and arrested in July 2015.

Appearing before Judge James West, Posey’s defense team, headed by Kevin Collins and Chase Johnson, is contesting the allegations brought by assistant state’s attor- neys Francis Granados and Jonathan Beattie. The defense argues that the state became intent on building a case against Posey, rather than conducting an objective investigation and, because of her high-risk lifestyle as a PCP dealer, there were several other suspects who would have had a motive to kill Anderson. The defense also noted the possibility of a drug overdose, as her cause of death could not be determined autopsy.

Through the first six days of the trial, the state had called numerous wit- nesses whose testimony seemed to corroborate the allegations against Posey.

Called by the state, an inmate currently incar- cerated at Jessup Cor- rectional Institution for armed robbery told the court that Posey, who also goes by the moniker “Bones,” had confided in him while housed in the same section of the Charles County Detention Center in late 2012, early 2013. Posey had been arrested for an unrelated armed robbery, and later pled guilty to lesser charges and received a one-year active sentence.

While in custody, how- ever, detectives were pressing him for infor- mation about Anderson’s death.

The inmate, who said he could be placing his safety at risk by testifying, said Posey was distraught after being harassed by detec- tives and opened up to him one day. Posey, he said, “felt bad about it, couldn’t take it” and had tried to kill himself. Other witnesses in the trial testified that Posey had tried to hang himself around the same time that police announced that human remains had been recovered.

“He just opened up to me about how his brother” owed Anderson $2,000 after fronting him PCP to sell, the inmate testified. “They had just planned on robbing her, and the robbery went bad and they killed her.”

The inmate said Posey didn’t say what went wrong during the robbery, but told him they dumped her body into the woods.

Asked by Granados why he was willing to testify in this case despite the risk, the inmate said he felt it was right thing to do. He explained that he had no deal with the state and no expectation of his 20-year active sentence being reduced.

The defense, however, was not convinced his motives were so pure. They pointed to letters the inmate had writ- ten claiming he could provide information on criminal activity in general in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It wasn’t until one of his numerous letters mentioned information on “Posley” that detectives paid him a professional visit.

The defense also not- ed that he would have a sentence reconsideration hearing, and that despite his claims, his testimony in this case was to his benefit.

Another man, Posey’s cousin, took the stand and claimed he had no recollection of what he had testified in front of a grand jury, and was asked by prosecutors to then read his lines from a transcript. However, the man said he could not read, so a law clerk assumed his role instead.

According to his grand jury testimony, Posey had showed up one night at his trailer home in Nanjemoy and was very emotional, and told him, “I did something, cuz. I killed somebody.”

“He said his brother owed somebody some money and he had to take care of that problem,” the man told the grand jury. He also previously testified that Posey had a black handgun tucked into his waistband, the same gun Posey later tried to sell him, along with another handgun.

On another occa- sion, Posey and Wilson showed up to his resi- dence and tried to sell him clothes and shoes, and had tried to give him a pit bull.

Court proceedings previously revealed that An- derson had moved into Wilson’s home shortly before her disappearance, and brought with her sev- eral trash bags of belong- ings and her pit bull.

Posey’s friend also told the grand jury that he had seen Posey shortly after he tried to hang himself in a neighbor’s yard — an account given by several different witnesses, including a woman who ran outside to stop him when she saw a noose tied around his neck from her kitchen window.

After the law clerk had read his grand jury testimony, the man repeated that he had no memory of any of that.

In response, Granados asked, “Does your lack of memory have anything to do with Posey telling you to hide when the trial begins?” referring to a recorded jailhouse call.

The man became increasingly contentious as questioning continued, and eventually claimed that he had been fed a story by detectives and prosecutors, and said “I was coached before I even went in the courtroom” before the grand jury.

Court proceedings revealed that the cousin, who clearly did not wish to testify, had been secretly recorded on several occasions by an acquaintance cooperating with police, which is how investigators knew the cousin had information regarding the case.

Later in the trial, the man cooperating with police testified that Posey had made a statement to him about having killed two people just minutes after trying to hang himself.

The trial is ongoing as prosecutors continue to call witnesses. The state plans to rest on Wednesday.