Murder trial hears from victim’s neighbours
Mark Champagne is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Natasha Thompson
Steven Corbett was eating dinner inside the Lang Street townhouse where he lived with his sister and her kids nearly four years ago when he heard bangs at the front door.
The next moments were like he was in a “slow-motion trance,” as he moved down the hallway and to the front door, he said in court Monday. He found bullet holes in his front door and when he opened the door he saw “my friend laying there dead.”
Natasha Thompson’s legs were on the front step of the Corbett family’s 17 Lang St. home, her body in their rose bush.
Corbett said that he looked right and saw Thompson’s boyfriend, Mark Champagne, walking
away. Then there was chaos as his sister came to the door and then Thompson’s daughter, Hana, who was hysterical. No one touched Natasha until police arrived.
Champagne is on trial for second-degree murder.
Steven Corbett and his sister — Lisa Corbett, who testified last week — knew Thompson and Champagne. Thompson lived next door at 15 Lang with her two daughters and Champagne had moved in the summer after the pair started dating.
Steven Corbett said he often heard yelling coming from next door and recognized the voices as Thompson and Champagne. One time, maybe a couple of months before her death, Corbett said he ran into Thompson at a gas station around 2:30 a.m.
where he was buying cigarettes. He offered to walk her home, but she told him she couldn’t, because Champagne was “the jealous type.”
Hana Thompson previously told the court that Champagne was controlling and they always argued about other men. She told her daughter about an hour before the shooting that she was having an abortion and that she was leaving Champagne.
Champagne is representing himself at trial. He questioned Corbett about his own lengthy criminal record and drug use. During the back and forth, Superior Court Justice Toni Skarica had to interrupt to tell them not to argue.
Court also heard from Hasno Mohmaud, a young woman who arrived on Lang Street by taxi with her young son just as shots rang out. She testified to hearing three to five shots as she was paying the cab. When she turned toward the noise, she said she saw a tall man with a gun take a couple steps back and then come forward again and fire more shots.
The shooter shot until the gun was empty, she said, adding that she heard a loud click. Then she saw the shooter walk away. She stayed in the taxi until police arrived and only then did she see the victim was a woman.
On cross-examination, Champagne also pressed her on what he said were inconsistencies in her statements to police and in court; at one point he called her a liar.
Mohmaud said she was traumatized at the time of the shooting and nervous to be in court. It has been four years since the Nov. 6, 2017, shooting.
“I’m trying my best,” she said, latter saying she has no reason to lie.
Kevin Cina was just 16 and lived at 7 Lang St. on the day of the shooting. He told the court that, after hearing the loud bangs, he looked out his window and saw the man he knew to be “Natasha’s boyfriend” walking by.
Cina said he looked angry and tucked something black into his front waistband as he walked away.
The trial continues.