Ongoing murder trial heads to the defense phase

Posey faces charges in 2011 murder of woman

Evidence against Ray- mond Daniel Posey III continued to accumulate in the final days of the state’s case as the jury heard testimony from a second inmate who claimed Posey made admissions of guilt to him, and heard a series of jailhouse calls and letters, in which Posey seemed to be attempting to influence witnesses.

Posey, 24, and Darrayl John Wilson, 25, both of Nanjemoy, are alleged to have killed Crystal Keyone Anderson, 29, and dumped her body down a ravine near Purse State Park in what they believe was a drug-related 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 of them returned to the area later that night, Posey and Wilson allegedly shot her to death and threw her body over a guardrail, 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 her a boot with her leg bone protruding near Purse State Park, a scene he said is forever imprinted into 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, there were no signs of 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 allega- tions brought by assistant state’s attorneys 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, that there were sever- al 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 through autopsy.

Called by the state Wednesday, a 31-yearold inmate testified that Posey, who he befriended in jail in late 2015, early 2016, had discussed details of the murder on 15 to 20 dif- ferent occasions.

People at the party in Nanjemoy wanted “water,” or PCP, from Anderson, he said, so Posey and Wilson took her to pick up more from her supplier in Prince George’s County.

As they returned to the area later that night, Posey and Wilson told Anderson that there was someone who want- ed to buy some PCP in the area of Purse State Park, according to the inmate. When they arrived at the area, Posey held Anderson at gunpoint, made her get out of the car and surrender a “few hundred dollars and four ounces of PCP,” before he “shot her five times in the stomach and chest area” with a .32 caliber handgun that he later sold to someone in Indian Head.

“… Darrayl [Wilson] picked her body up, and threw her over the guardrail,” he continued, also explaining Posey’s motivation for the killing, that he had been mad at Anderson for seeking out his brother who owed her money.

The next day, the inmate said, Posey returned to the scene and collected the shell casings.

Asked about his cooperation in this case, the inmate told the court that he was cur- rently serving an active sentence of 40 years for armed robbery in Prince George’s County, a conviction that violated his probation in Charles County for another armed robbery case. Rather than adding another 20 years of back up time to his active sentence for the violation, he agreed to testify truthfully in Posey’s trial.

During cross-examination, the defense suggested that the inmate could have reviewed Posey’s discov- ery paperwork kept in his property box. The inmate conceded that he had read some of his discovery when he and Posey went to the law library together, but only one paper that contained Wilson’s statements to police. All of the information he provided investigators, he insisted, came from Posey directly.

The defense also point- ed out that the inmate told investigators initially that Posey had shot Anderson in the head with a .380 caliber handgun, and months later said Posey had used a .32 caliber gun and shot her in the torso.

A woman called ear- lier in the trial seemed to corroborate the inmate’s statement about the defendants returning to pick up shell casings. The woman, how- ever, Wilson’s longtime girlfriend who married Wilson last week, was uncooperative and contentious under questioning by prosecutors. According to her prior statements to a detective, a recording played for the jury, she had been on the phone with Wilson the day after the party, and he seemed to be looking for something, picking stuff up, in a hilly area while talking to Posey.

“[They were] somewhere where there were hills,” she said in the 2014 interview, “… They were looking for something” and Wilson repeatedly said “where is this [explicit]?”

The woman, who had initiated the contact with the detective, told the court that she had made all of that up because she had gotten in a fight with Wilson and was mad at him, and denied that her account changed because of her recent marriage.

Asked by Granados why she brought Posey’s name into it if she was mad at Wilson, she replied “to make it believable.”

In addition to testimony consistent with the allegations, the jury also heard Posey’s numerous jailhouse calls to witnesses in the case, his calls to third-parties directing them to contact witnesses, and letters to sent indirectly to witnesses. In many of the calls, he avoided using names, and instead uses descriptions like “kinfolk” or “bighead” to indicate who he was referring to.

In a call with Wilson, Posey said, “We [explicit] up right now. You know that right? … They coming to get you too,” adding that his name is listed as a co-defendant.

In a call with a woman, Posey seemed to direct her to contact Wilson and say “I know what you said, bruh. I still love you, but don’t do that, dog. Follow the code.”

The jury also saw jail surveillance video of Posey exchanging a hand-written note intended to reach Wilson that was intercepted by police. The note, addressed to “Rell,” instructed him to recant his statements to police, and to say he was high at the time. “I stuck to the story homes,” he also wrote in the note. “… Don’t talk about nothing over the phone.”

In another recorded phone call, Posey told a woman, “I wrote this [explicit] a note,” and that they had caught him on video. “… It’s like he turned around and handed it to them.”

A letter recovered by police, which had been sent by Posey’s cellmate to his brother’s girlfriend’s residence, addressed to his brother’s nickname and signed “Raymond D. Posey,” asked him to get in contact with a witness and tell him to either lie or not show up to court.

The hand-written correspondences were examined by an expert handwriting analyst with Maryland State Police and found to match that of Posey’s by reviewing inmate request forms.

The state rested Thursday morning. The defense plans to finish its case Thursday evening or Friday.