The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Witness: Woman had tried to kill man before
Lamar Capers’ best friend testified Nicole Villegas had attempted to kill him at least once before he was fatally shot in the head in November 2014.
Britt Noble’s statement on April 27 seemed to catch both the prosecution and defense by surprise on the second day of testimony in the murder trial of Villegas, 34, of Elyria.
Villegas is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of felonious assault in connection to the Nov. 24, 2014, shooting death of Capers, 32.
Noble, who told jurors he’d been best friends with Capers since 1995, said he introduced the doomed
pair some time in 2014 and he was friends with both of them.
When asked by Lorain County Assistant Prosecutor Chris Pierre about whether he was still friends with Villegas, Noble said that changed when she
killed his best friend.
Noble said during the summer previous to the shooting, Villegas had held a .40-caliber gun to Capers’ head in an attempt to kill him, but the safety was on.
He also vaguely referenced she had possibly stabbed Capers in the chest and claimed Capers had a mark on his chest from the incident.
When pressed by defense attorney Steve Albenze as to whether there was any evidence of these incidents or if police reports were filed, Noble said there was not.
As part of Noble’s testimony, Pierre introduced a recording of a phone call Noble received around 4 p.m. on the day of the murder in which Villegas asked Noble to sell her some heroin.
Noble said it actually was the second call he received from Villegas that day.
In the first, he said Villegas claimed she and Capers were walking down the stairs of their duplex in the 600 block of Lowell Street when the Taurus brand .357 magnum revolver, which was in a diaper bag, went off and struck Capers in the face.
According to Noble, he had Villegas call him back so he record her description of the events and look for discrepancies.
“I knew Nicole was kind of a compulsive liar, so I wanted to record it just to see if she told me two different stories,” he said.
The phone call was played for the court and Villegas could be heard saying Capers was going to propose to her and she loved him and would never hurt him.
When Noble pressed to find out what happened, Villegas said when she and Capers got to their Mercury Sable, he told her the gun was in the car to retaliate against three “little dudes” who had been outside of their home.
Villegas claimed in the call she confronted him about the gun and the two struggled over the weapon and she “barely pressed” the trigger and it went off fatally striking him in the face, Noble testified.
Villegas also repeatedly offered Noble an extra $20 on top of the price of the heroin she wanted him to have delivered to her in the hospital where she was staying, he said.
As the recording was played in court, Villegas looked at Noble with her lips tightly pursed occasionally covering her face when her recorded voice grew hysterical.
The trial was set to continue at 8:30 a.m. April 28 before Common Pleas Judge Mark A. Betleski.