Martin Parker testified that he had been bored, sitting on a bench waiting for his friends Dontay Carter and Clarence Woodward to return from the parking garage at the Harbor Park Cinema. Carter, who didn't own a car, then pulled up in a station wagon with Mr. Woodward and another man in the back seat, Mr. Parker recalled.
Taking the stand yesterday in the eighth day of Carter's murder trial in Baltimore Circuit Court, Mr. Parker said he got into the car and noticed the man was covered by a coat.
"He [the man under the coat] said, 'Please don't hurt me,'" Mr. Parker testified.
"He said it two or three times."
Mr. Parker, 18, said he wanted out of that car because he didn't know what the others planned to do to the man.
The following day, he testified, Mr. Woodward told him that Carter had beat the man to death in an "old house."
That testimony was challenged by defense lawyers who produced a transcript of conflicting grand jury testimony.
Called to the stand by prosecutors, Mr. Parker also told the jury he saw Carter burn a driver's license in a parking lot outside the MVA's Mondawmin office within hours of seeing the man in the station wagon.
Another witness had testified last week that Carter produced a burned license in the name of slaying victim Vitalis V. Pilius and obtained a replacement.
The 37-year-old Catonsville man's body was found Feb. 14 in thebasement of a burned out rowhouse at 2035 Mura St. in East Baltimore.
Mr. Parker also said that he and Mr. Woodward accompanied Carter on a shopping spree to two sporting goods stores, two jewelry stores and a clothing store in Mondawmin Mall.
He testified that he was among five friends in a car driven by Carter the following day when the defendant was asked what had happened to the man.
"First Dontay didn't want to say nothing, then he said, 'We buried him in the woods,' " Mr. Parker said.
"Clarence bumped my shoulder. Clarence said, 'No he didn't. He took him to this old house, he started hitting the man and that's why he died."
When it was his turn to question Mr. Parker, defense attorney John S. Deros produced a transcript showing that the witness had told a grand jury that no mention of the man's fate was made during the car ride.