Prosecutor: Norristown man used hammer in deadly, ‘ vicious attack’

NORRISTOWN » A Norristown man delivered eight “bone- shattering,” fatal blows from a hammer to the head of anotherman whom he robbed of drugs and cash during a “vicious attack,” a prosecutor alleged to a jury.

“The defendant picked up a hammer and bashed in the skull of Leroy McCray. Leroy McCray never got to his feet. He never got the chance to defend himself. The defendant got the drop on him,” Montgomery County Deputy District Attorney Thomas W. McGoldrick argued as the murder trial of Michael R. Bell got underway on Monday.

McGoldrick alleged Bell killed McCray, 42, as McCray lay on a couch inside Bell’s apartment on Sept. 23, 2017.

Prosecutors described McCray as “a drifter and small- time drug dealer” who often sold drugs to Bell. McGoldrick characterized Bell as “stressed out and short of money” at the time of the murder.

“All eight of the blows landed on the right side of Mr. McCray’s head. The blows were literally boneshattering and the blows were fatal,” McGoldrick argued, adding Bell then took drugs and $ 25 from McCray’s pockets. “The blood went flying during this vicious attack.”

McGoldrick and co- prosecutor Douglas Lavenberg contend Bell, 35, of the 100 block of Schuylkill Avenue, intended to killMcCray and did so during a robbery.

Bell faces charges of first-, second-, and third- degree murder, robbery, possessing an instrument of crime and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.

If convicted of first- degree murder, an intentional killing, or second- degree murder, a killing committed during the course of another felony such as robbery, Bell faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.

A conviction of third- degree murder, a killing committed with malice, carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.

But defense lawyer John Walko, while acknowledging the crime “isn’t a whodunit,” argued Bell acted with “justifiable self- defense” when McCray attacked him inside his residence at the Riverside Apartments.

“He was acting to protect his own life in his own apartment. It wasn’t something that he wanted to do. It wasn’t something he intended to do. It’s something that he struggles with every day of his life,” Walko argued during his opening statement to the jury of nine women and threemen that is weighing Bell’s fate.

“He ( McCray) attacked my client. He literally backed my client into a corner of the apartment. Mr. McCray kept coming and my client did what he felt he had to do at that time in order to protect himself,” Walko argued.

Walko suggested the prosecution’s evidence is insufficient to support the prosecution’s theory that McCray was attacked while lying on a couch in Bell’s apartment.

An investigation began about 8: 13 p. m. when Norristown police responded to Bell’s apartment for a report of a dead body on the premises. Bell told arriving police therewas a “dead guy in his apartment and blood everywhere,” according to the criminal complaint filed by county Detective William Mitchell and Norristown Detective Corporal Nicholas Dumas.

Bell, according to court

“The blows were literally bone shattering and the blows were fatal.”

— Montgomery County Deputy District Attorney Thomas McGoldrick

documents, escorted police into his apartment where McCray’s body was found on the living room floor.

“A large amount of blood could be observed on the couch next to the body of McCray,” Mitchell and Dumas alleged in the arrest affidavit, adding detectives observed a traumatic wound to the right temple area of McCray’s head.

Detectives noted multiple angles of blood cast off around McCray’s body.

An autopsy by the Montgomery County Coroner’s office determined the cause of death was “multiple blunt force trauma to the head,” and the manner of McCray’s death was ruled a homicide.

During an initial interview by detectives, Bell claimed McCray had come to his apartment at 7 a. m. Bell claimed he left the apartment a short time later and spent most of the day in New Jersey and at a friend’s house in Norristown. Bell initially claimed when he returned to his apartment later that night he found McCray dead and he denied any role in the killing, according to court documents.

But after detectives confronted Bell about several inconsistencies in his story, he admitted to killing McCray.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, Bell recanted his earlier statement and said McCray came over to his apartment and was “acting weird.” Bell said he and McCray exchanged words and McCray pushed him. Bell told investigators he then retrieved the hammer and struck McCray on the left side of his head.

Bell told police he struck McCray a total of about four times and McCray fell to the floor, and eventually stopped breathing.

While prosecutors contend Bell killed McCray while McCray was on the couch, Bell, according to his statement to detectives, claimed he moved McCray’s body onto the couch and then began to stage the scene to make it appear as a robbery so he turned McCray’s pants pockets inside out.

B ell allegedly collected the hammer and McCray’s cellphone and wallet – from which he took $ 25 – and placed the items in a plastic bag and tossed them behind his apartment building in the direction of the Schuylkill River before calling 911.

Police later searched the area and recovered a bag containing a hammer and McCray’s belongings, according to court documents.

Police interviewed several of Bell’s associates whom he had mentioned in his original alibi, and all of their stories were consistent with Bell having concocted a cover- up.

Michael Bell