Keith Williams’ attorney called no witnesses, but argued that prosecutors did not present enough evidence to justifying finding him guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
TRENTON — A jury began deliberations today in the trial of Keith Williams, a city man who allegedly plotted the 2008 murder of a fellow gang member on the social networking site Myspace.
Williams’ attorney Mark Fury did not call any witnesses in his client’s defense, but argued in his closing statements to the jury that the prosecutors did not present enough evidence to justify finding him guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
“I think the matter is undecided,” Fury said.
Prosecutors allege that Williams and three other gang members — Karim Sampson, Brandon Edwards and John Murphy — talked about killing 20-year-old Arrel Bell, who they believed had “snitched” by giving a statement to police against Sampson. Bell was found shot to death in Stacy Park on May 1, 2008.
Prosecutors presented several Myspace messages sent between the four men in the days leading up to and following the murder, in which they appear to be talking about and planning Bell’s killing. Prosecutors also played several hours of a videotaped statement Williams gave police, following his arrest several weeks after the shooting.
Fury argued that the prosecutors, in crafting their version of events, presented no solid evidence and only made “reasonable inferences” to tie together vaguely worded Myspace messages with the facts of the murder.
“There is nothing of a physical nature linking Mr. Williams to Mr. Bell,” Fury said. “It doesn’t establish that Mr. Williams had a motive for Bell’s death.”
Fury said Sampson may have had a motive to kill Bell, because Bell had supposedly snitched on him, but that did not mean Williams had the same motive.
While Williams told police that “everyone in town” knew that Bell was a target because he snitched, there is no evidence that Williams formulated or agreed to any plan to kill Bell, Fury said.
“This guy didn’t do it,” Fury said.
Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley said Williams acknowledged that he received messages about the murder from friends, and even said, “I’m guilty of conspiracy.”
McCauley said Williams told police exactly what happened on the day Bell was shot, and who went down to the park where Bell was later found dead. Even if Williams decided at the last minute he did not want to go forward with the plan to kill Bell, under state law Williams was obliged to alert police about the plan before Bell was killed, McCauley said.
If the jury finds Williams not guilty of conspiring to murder Bell, they can still find him guilty of witness tampering, McCauley said.
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