The father took the witness stand to testify in the first day of the murder trial.
Exterior view of the new Mercer County Criminal Courthouse in Trenton on South Warren St, in Trenton, New Jersey.
TRENTON – The father of Michael Whitaker, a city man allegedly murdered by his live-in girlfriend Ivelis Turell, testified yesterday that during a telephone call with his son the day he was killed, the woman could be heard in the background screaming and cursing.
James Whitaker Jr. told the court his son’s voice was trembling on the phone and he told him to pack his clothes and leave the home he shared with Turell.
The father took the witness stand to testify in the first day of the murder trial.
James Whitaker Jr., said his youngest son called him shortly before he was shot, asking if he could come to stay at his apartment in Morrisville, Pennsylvania for the night, because he had had an argument with Turell.
“He was very upset,” Whitaker said. “There was a trembling in his voice.”
Whitaker testified that during the short phone conversation he could hear Turell in the background screaming and cursing at his son.
He said his son said: “I’ve got to get out of here.” Whitaker said he told his son to calm down, grab a change of clothes and come over to his house. He testified that he left the door unlocked for the night, because he was expecting his son.
“I waited up for him for the longest,” Whitaker said. “And he never showed up. He never showed up.”
The next day, Whitaker was notified by a Trenton Police detective who came to his house, that his son was dead.
Turell is facing between 30 years and life in prison if convicted on the 2007 murder and weapons charges. She is free on $250,000 bail.
Whitaker was found face down in a pool of blood on the sidewalk outside the Ferry Street home where he lived with Turell and their two sons, according to testimony of Ismael Rivera Jr., a police officer who responded to the scene.
Turell, who also suffered a gunshot to her left shoulder, claimed previously that she was acting in self-defense when she shot Whitaker.
According to police, Whitaker suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was transported to the hospital, where he died later that night.
Rivera said when he arrived, just after 10:45 p.m. on April 30, 2007, Turell told him that her 6-year-old son, Eddie, was playing with a handgun and shot Whitaker. When Rivera then asked where Eddie was, he said Turell told him her son was upstairs sleeping.
When the officer went inside the house, he said he saw a silver handgun on the floor and a trail of blood leading out the front door of the house.
Prosecutors also played the 911 call Turell made after the shooting, where she frantically screams: “I thought it wasn’t loaded and I grabbed it and it shot.”
More than a dozen of Whitaker’s friends and family members sat in on the first day of arguments in the trial. Turell’s mother was also in the courtroom.
Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5717.