Accused killer declines to testify
NORRISTOWN >> A Norristown man accused of the gunshot slaying of a borough teenager during a botched robbery declined to testify at his trial. Omar Terrell “Odie” Massenburg informed Montgomery County Judge Thomas P. Rogers on Thursday that he decided not testify in his own defense at his trial in connection with the alleged 10:05 p.m. March 18, 2011, gunshot slaying of 17-year-old D’Ravious “Ray” Dawkins at the intersection of West Oak and Noble streets in Norristown. Massenburg indicated he conferred with his lawyer Francis Genovese before making the decision.
The judge will instruct jurors that they cannot form any adverse inferences from Massenburg’s decision not to testify. The jury of six men and six women will hear closing statements from the lawyers and then receive legal instructions from the judge on Friday after which the jury will begin deliberations.
Genovese called two witnesses on Thursday while presenting the defense case, including a Norristown man who testified he was in a juvenile detention facility on March 18, 2011, and could not have been present at a Kohn Street residence, as a prosecution “cooperating witness” had testified, to hear Massenburg’s alleged confession to the fatal shooting. The man’s mother, the second defense witness, confirmed that the man was in a juvenile facility on March 18. On Wednesday, a prosecution witness testified that Massenburg confessed to killing another man when he visited a Kohn Street residence within hours of the March 18 fatal shooting. That cooperating witness testified the Norristown man also was present to hear the confession.
Genovese implied Massenburg’s confession never occurred and that the cooperating prosecution witness concocted the story of a confession. During cross-examinations of several cooperating witnesses, who appeared to implicate Massenburg in the shooting, Genovese suggested their testimony cannot be trusted because they are looking for rewards of leniency from prosecutors while awaiting court action for their own alleged crimes.
Genovese has also argued prosecutors have no scientific evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, to link Massenburg to the Dawkins murder.
Assistant District Attorney Lauren Heron and co-prosecutor James Price wrapped up the prosecution’s case on Thursday with testimony from another “cooperating witness” who claimed he saw Massenburg hours before the shooting and that Massenburg told him at that time he was heading over to the “west side” of Norristown to “handle something, a situation.”