RICHMOND, Va. -- A jury trial for two of five men charged with murdering 15-year-old Tynashia Humphrey began Wednesday in Richmond.
Humphrey was caught in the crossfire and killed in a September 2022 shootout in the Gilpin Court section of Richmond.
The Richmond teenager was walking from a store at the time and was not the intended target.
WTVR
Tyree Coley, 21, and Savonne Henderson, 24, are being tried together for the shooting.
Both men face charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, shooting in a public place, and shooting from a vehicle.
Both men pled not guilty to all the charges.
Prior to jury selection, prosecutors told the court they believed they would finish presenting their case by mid-Friday. The trial is scheduled for three days.
The defense attorneys told the court they believed the case would be in the jurys hands by Thursday as they did not intend to call any witnesses.
The trial for the three other suspects was supposed to occur in March but was delayed.
Opening Arguments
The case is being tried by Assistant Commonwealths Attorneys Andy Johnson and Katherine Groover. The prosecutions opening argument to the jury was made by Johnson.
First placing a photo of Humphrey on a stand in front of the jurors, Johnson told them that she did nothing to deserve what had happened to her the night in question and that if it were not for a cowardly and senseless act of violence committed by the defendants, she would be alive today.
Johnson said Coley had an ongoing beef with a person who was at Gilpin Court that night and he and the other suspects, who Johnson said Coley is in a gang with, committed the shooting because of that.
Johnson added Humphreys 12-year-old niece would testify they were walking home from the store and recalled seeing two cars at the intersection of N. First St. and E. Charity St. and saw men in one of the cars holding guns.
Johnson said when the people in the two cars started shooting, the niece ran and hid behind a tree while Humphrey ran down the street towards the person they were shooting at. He said she was short once in the back.
Johnson said at least 20 shots were fired from the two cars they allege the suspects were in, adding the person they were shooting at eventually returned fire and shot between seven to nine times.
He said a total of 37 shell casings were recovered from the scene and police said four firearms were used.
Johnson said police used cameras around the scene to determine the cars involved and found one car the next day with Rarmil as the sole occupant and found the other car three days later, with Henderson as one of the occupants.
He said all five suspects met up at an apartment before the shooting, before traveling to Gilpin in the two cars. He said that police obtained cellphone data for all five men, but added three of them turned their phones off briefly around the time the alleged murder happened.
Johnson finished by saying while no one would testify to seeing the two suspects on trial (or any of the other three defendants) fire the shots, the other information the prosecution would present would make it clear that both men are guilty.
Defense Opening Arguments
Because Coley and Henderson are being tried jointly, both men have their own defense attorneys who are each given a chance to speak and cross-examine any prosecution witnesses.
Henderson's attorney, Stephen Mutnick, gave his opening remarks first and said while Humphrey's death was a "senseless tragedy", police and prosecutors rushed their case and rush to judgement in an effort to find someone to blame. He said prosecutors will only present part of the story.
Mutnick added that no one will testify that the suspects were the ones firing the guns or even testify that they were at Gilpin Court that day.
He said that prosecutors will focus on surveillance camera video from the scene, but the video would not show muzzle flashes coming from the car they allege the suspects were in -- only from the car belonging to the other person.
Mutnick added part of the police's rush to judgement included failing to save one surveillance video from a gas station alleging to show the suspects together and another one from Gilpin was not saved before it was deleted and investigators only have a cellphone recording of that video to work with.
Mutnick said prosecutors will talk about bullet fragments, but no mention will be made of which gun fired the fatal shot (additionally, he said no guns were recovered to connect them to). He said the person who fired back at the alleged suspects said he fired seven-to-nine times and does not know if one of his bullets hit Humphrey; adding prosecutors would not be able to rule it out.
He added that while prosecutors will say Henderson's phone was pinging off a tower in the area, the FBI agent that will testify about the data will talk about limitations with the technology.
Mutnick told the jurors that while prosecutors will say it was the suspects, it will be up to them to decide and that there is reasonable doubt as to who was in the two cars police claim contained the suspects.
Coley's attorney, Gregory Sheldon, made similar comments about the video evidence, plus questions about who is actually in the two cars and what evidence actually placed Coley at the scene.
Sheldon added there will also be talk of DNA swabs taken from the cars and added that Coley's DNA will be excluded from those samples.
Witness Testimony
Witness 1 - RPD Officer
The first witness called to the stand by the prosecution was one of the first Richmond Police Department (RPD) officers who responded to the call and he described how he found Humphrey and his attempts to render first aid.
On cross examination, the officer confirmed he did not see anyone believed to be involved in the shooting. He also admitted he did not know if someone had moved Humphrey before he arrived on scene.
Witness #2 - Humphrey's Niece
The next witness was Humphrey's 12-year-old niece who she was walking home from the store with.
The girl said she remembered seeing two cars as they walked through the intersection of N. First St. and E. Charity St. and that people on the passenger side of one of the cars were holding guns.
She said one of the men had twist dreads and others were wearing masks.
The niece said no one else was shooting when the gunfire started from those two cars and it was not until Humphrey had fallen to the ground that the person who was being shot at began to return fire. She said she remembered hearing around six shots total.
On cross examination, the niece said she did not recognize either Coley or Henderson. She added the person who had the twist dreads was fat.
Witness #3 - Another Niece of Humphrey
The third witness was another niece of Humphrey's, a 14-year-old who went to the store with Humphrey, but was walking back a different way than Humphrey and the first niece.
This niece said she did not notice anything until Humphrey was almost hit by the two cars in the intersection and shortly after heard the gunshots. She recalled somewhere between ten to 20 shots. She said the two cars in the intersection were shooting in the direction of where Humphrey was walking.
Witness #4 - RPD Detective Sergeant
The last witness to testify before jurors on day one was Det. Sgt. Jon Bridges, the supervisor of the homicide unit that investigated Humphrey's death.
Bridges said he got on scene shortly before 8 p.m. and early on in the investigation, police learned of a Black Jeep being involved in the case somehow, but they developed more leads in the ensuring hours.
Bridges said they utilized the surveillance video system set up around Gilpin Court, but said to access and save the video they record requires them to go to an office and use a certain laptop. He said only some officers in the department know how to do this.
Bridges said one officer who knew how went with him and a few other investigators to look at the video and they saw the Black Jeep mentioned near where Humphrey was found and saw in other surveillance video afterwards. He said the officer who was helping investigators access the video knew who the driver was (eventually identified as the person being shot at by the suspects).
He said investigators also identified two other cars of interest on the security cameras, a black sedan and a light blue-gray sedan that were seen traveling in tandem.
Bridges also mentioned that all the video they viewed also has a certain process to download that can be "time-consuming and tedious" and officers may download immediately or defer to later if it is a longer clip. He said they downloaded a few clips that night and asked another officer the next day to go back and download a few more clips, which he said were sent to him a day or two later.
Bridges admitted that a request for a certain camera view was either missed or the request was misinterpreted and was not downloaded in time before the file was deleted, but said one officer on the night of Sept. 12 used his iPhone to record the clip as it was being played at the office.
This video of a video was of the intersection where the alleged shooting occurred, where Bridges said the two cars entered the intersection, paused, and then continued on. He added that in the video you could only see the driver sides of those two cars.
Bridges said they also used a license plate reader caught two cars in the area that he said matched the cars in the surveillance video.
Bridges then walked the jurors through a timeline on a map of when and where the two cars were spotted on the surveillance videos.
On cross examination, Mutnick raised questions about the poor quality of the video played in court, which Bridges said was because of the program being used to play it. He also took the blame the original video not being saved as it should have.
He also admitted that there is a hiccup in the video during the time that he alleged the two cars paused in the intersection.
Mutnick also asked how police confirmed the cars in the license plate reader photo were the same as in the surveillance video images since you could not make out the license plates in the surveillance video and Bridges said the compared it using other characteristics like make and model.
Meanwhile, Sheldon asked and Bridges confirmed that despite looking at a significant amount of video in the investigation they could never identify the occupants of the car.
On redirect (final questioning from the prosecution), Bridges said there was no difference in the context from the video he saw the night in question and the second-hand video that was played in the courtroom -- that the two cars traveled in tandem, paused in the intersection, and then left.
He added on the point of matching the cars in the license plate reader photos and surveillance video, that no other cars that came through the license plate reader camera matched those in the surveillance videos.
Issues with Next Witness
Before breaking for the day, the court tried to determine what to do with one witness prosecutors planned to call, but were concerned would not answer their questions and instead invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The witness is the person who the suspects allegedly shot at and who allegedly returned fire.
Prosecutors told the judge nothing the witness could say in court could be used against him because he had already said them in interviews with police.
The witness was then brought into court for questioning, but without the jurors present.
When asked if he recalled being at Gilpin Court on Sept. 12, 2022, the witness said he was not sure. When asked if he was being honest, the witness then said he was there a lot and exact dates do not stand out.
When Groover asked if he remembered the night he watched a girl fall next to his vehicle, the witness remained silent for about twenty seconds. When Groover asked again, he invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Groover asked several more questions to which the witness either remained silent, answered in the affirmative, or invoked the Fifth Amendment.
The witness is currently in custody for an unrelated matter and is being represented by Gianna Fienberg, who then spoke up in court and said their client was being asked questions that were leading to ones that could implicate him in more specific crimes either from the state or federal level.
Groover said it is not her belief that he was being charged by her office (and would draw up a letter stating he will be protected from anything he would say) and added she had spoken to federal prosecutors who said they had no intentions of charging the witness in relation to this case.
Judge Hairston said he was hesitant to compel the witness to testify without knowing what he would say. The defense counsel then gave the judge a copy of the police interview transcript for him to review.
CBS 6 Legal Analyst Todd Stone offered the following analysis of this issue:
"The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a witness with the right against self-incrimination, meaning they cannot be compelled to testify against themselves in a criminal case. Its important to note however that the right can hinge on an offer of immunity from prosecution. If a witness is being offered immunity from prosecution, it means that they are being granted protection against any criminal charges that may arise from their testimony. In such cases, the witness could be compelled by the Court to testify (since their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination would no longer apply.) By providing immunity, the prosecution is essentially removing the threat of prosecution, which encourages the witness to provide truthful and potentially incriminating information," said Stone. "A state prosecutor however does not have the authority to offer immunity from federal criminal prosecution so the offer of state immunity can often be an insufficient basis for a Court to compel that witness to testify."
The judge told prosecutors they would come back Thursday and put the witness on the stand with jurors present and if they still remained at a impasse, to have their arguments ready for why the judge should compel him to testify.
Court is set to resume at 9 a.m.
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