Eyewitness unable to ID shooter
NORRISTOWN » An 18-year-old man who witnessed the fatal shooting of his Pottstown friend on a Norristown street, and who also was injured during the ambush, testified he couldn’t identify the shooter, even though he previously revealed the shooter’s identity to others.
“I didn’t see his face,” Taye Wynder claimed when he testified in Montgomery County Court on Thursday at the trial of Isaiah “Zay” Freeman, the man accused of being the triggerman during the July 6, 2017, shooting death of 16-year-old Jordan Scott of Pottstown.
Deputy District Attorney Samantha Cauffman pressed Wynder about whether Freeman, of Norristown, was the killer.
“It wasn’t him,” Wynder claimed.
Cauffman pressed on, asking Wynder if it would surprise him that Freeman, through his lawyer, conceded during the trial that he was the shooter.
“I don’t think he did,” Wynder continued.
Cauffman then asked Wynder what he thought about people who cooperate with law enforcement.
“They’re a rat,” said Wynder, adding he didn’t want to be perceived as “a rat.”
Moments later, Wynder’s friend, Brian Walters, stepped into the witness box and testified for Cauffman that he visited Wynder at Paoli Hospital after the shooting and that Wynder told him “Zay” was the shooter.
During his opening statement to jurors, defense lawyer John I. McMahon Jr. didn’t dispute that Freeman shot Scott but suggested Freeman didn’t commit first- or third-degree murder but manslaughter. McMahon suggested Freeman acted with “an unreasonable belief” that Scott and Wynder had come to Norristown to harm him.
McMahon suggested Scott mistakenly believed that Freeman had shot at him during a previous incident.
Wynder, who said Scott “was like my brother,” did testify that he and Scott were walking in the 600 block of Chain Street in Norristown about 6:30 p.m. July 6 when they were ambushed by a man with a gun as they reached Blackberry Alley.
“That’s when somebody popped out and started shooting. The person who popped out shot first. He ran. I got shot in my right ankle,” Wynder testified, adding he and Scott also were armed with guns at the time and he returned fire.
Scott collapsed on the sidewalk and died at the scene. Wynder subsequently was found by police in a nearby yard and was taken to Paoli Hospital for treatment of his wound.
Prosecutors contend Freeman, of Norristown, ran to a waiting vehicle operated by William Durell Wilson and fled from the area. Wilson, also of Norristown, supplied Freeman with the gun used to kill Scott, prosecutors contend.
Wilson, 31, of the first block of Zummo Way, and Freeman, 19, of the first block of East Spruce Street, face charges of first- and third-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, aggravated assault, persons not to possess firearms and possessing instruments of crime in connection with Scott’s death.
An autopsy determined Scott died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds and two projectiles were removed from the teenager’s body, according to court documents.
Scott, who once lived in the 500 block of High Street in Norristown’s East End, had moved to Pottstown several months before the shooting.
Cauffman and co-prosecutor Roderick Fancher suggested the shooting was the result of a long simmering feud between rival groups from Norristown and Pottstown.
But Wynder testified there was no “beef” between Scott and Freeman.
On Wednesday, another eyewitness to the murder, Bryce Byrd, 19, testified he was in the backseat of a 2013 Dodge Challenger operated by Wilson when Freeman, the front seat passenger shouted, “That’s them! That’s them!” to Wilson when Freeman allegedly saw Scott and Wynder in the area of Oak and Chain streets in Norristown.
Byrd described Freeman as “hyped,” and testified Wilson parked his car in the area of Blackberry and Jamison alleys and gave Freeman a handgun. Byrd testified he watched as Freeman exited the vehicle, pulled the hood to his gray sweatshirt over his head, walked along Blackberry Alley and peeked around the corner of a building onto Chain Street.
Byrd observed Freeman point the firearm in the direction of Chain Street, adding he then heard several gunshots.
Byrd said he then observed Freeman run back to Wilson’s car and proclaim he had shot someone. Wilson then sped away from the scene.
To corroborate the testimony of Wynder and Byrd prosecutors relied on dramatic videotape footage, obtained from multiple surveillance cameras in the borough, which depicted the moments leading up to the shooting. Jurors appeared riveted on Thursday as they viewed the Dodge Challenger’s travels throughout Norristown
“That’s when somebody popped out and started shooting. The person who popped out shot first.” — shooting victim Taye Wynder
“I was able to view the homicide and shooting itself. It was very fast. Jordan falls down after taking a few steps.”
— Montgomery County Detective Michael Crescitelli
“I was able to see William Wilson’s Dodge Challenger before, during and after the shooting. I was able to view the homicide and shooting itself. It was very fast. Jordan falls down after taking a few steps,” county Detective Michael Crescitelli said as he explained the surveillance footage to the jurors.
The surveillance video showed a figure return to the Dodge Challenger, which then sped off, running several stops signs in the borough during the getaway.
Crescitelli also read to the jury a statement Freeman gave to detectives after he was apprehended on Aug. 30, 2017. In that initial statement Freeman fingered Wilson as the triggerman, claiming he refused Wilson’s requests to shoot the teenagers.
But Crescitelli said he then confronted Freeman with the inconsistencies between his statement and other evidence amassed during the then 7-week-old investigation.
“(Freeman) said, ‘My life is over. I’m going jail for the rest of my life,’” Crescitelli testified.
Prosecutors hinted at a motive for the shooting.
“Wilson and Freeman are a part of the same group of friends from Norristown that are alleged to have been feuding with Jordan Scott and others associated from Pottstown” during the days leading up to the shooting, prosecutors alleged.
But McMahon and defense lawyer A. Charles Peruto Jr., who represents Wilson, argued to the jury that there was no conspiracy between Wilson and Freeman.