Julie Lombardi, victim, eyeballed Xavier Cornelius Wilson, defendant.
The kindergarten teacher was on the witness stand yesterday to describe how a would-be carjacker shot her in the face as she left Northwest Baltimore's Malcolm X Elementary School in February. She could recall her attacker's clothes and his voice, but she didn't get a good look at his face -- she had stared straight ahead from the driver's seat of her 1988 Acura Legend when the man tried to commandeer her car.
"I wanted to avoid any contact with him," she told the jury on the first day of Mr. Wilson's trial in Baltimore Circuit Court. "I closed my eyes. I said a prayer. I asked the Lord to please get me home safely, that I had family waiting for me."
In court, she looked straight at the teen-ager charged with firing the bullet that shattered her face.
Still, she couldn't positively say under oath that Mr. Wilson was her attacker.
Mr. Wilson, who turned 17 last month, is charged with assault with intent to murder, attempted armed robbery and handgun violations. His trial, before Judge Clifton J. Gordy, is expected to last three days. He is awaiting trial on unrelated charges of robbing two women on their way to church in November 1993.
Prosecutor Donald J. Giblin told the jury he'd prove Mr. Wilson was the assailant through other testimony. Joyce Drumwright testified yesterday that she saw Mr. Wilson hanging around the school throughout the day of the attack.
Keith Cook testified that he was going to sell Mr. Wilson a used Acura in need of repairs -- testimony designed to support the prosecution's suggestion that the teen-ager wanted Mrs. Lombardi's car for parts. Mr. Cook testified further that he was leaving his home near the school for a trip to a physical therapist when Mr. Wilson, within minutes of the shooting, insisted on joining him.
Mr. Giblin also said a man waiting for a bus on Reisterstown Road will identify Mr. Wilson as the person he saw approaching the teacher's car just seconds before shots were heard. That man, Kevin Ross, collected a $1,300 award after coming forward, the prosecutor said.
John Markus, one of two assistant public defenders representing Mr. Wilson, said the evidence is "unreliable and unconvincing."
In his opening statement to the jury, he suggested that police under pressure to solve a high-profile case settled on Mr. Wilson as a suspect because he is a drug dealer, and he noted that no physical evidence links the defendant to the crime. Furthermore, he suggested that Mr. Ross might not be believable because he did not come forward until the crime had been described in news accounts and until rumors had circulated in the neighborhood.
Mrs. Lombardi, 42, was the first witness in the case. She was escorted into the courtroom by the Rev. Jack Lombardi, a priest in Northeast Baltimore and a cousin by marriage. A petite woman, she wore a black jacket over a flower-print skirt. Her face, reconstructed by surgery, did not betray the extent of her injuries.
As Mr. Wilson, wearing a royal blue sweat shirt and blue jeans, took notes, she traced her career: 21 years at Malcolm X Elementary, including 18 years as a kindergarten teacher. She said she left the school about 3:45 p.m. on Feb. 1, and as she drove toward a traffic light at Reisterstown Road, a young man blocked her way.
"He glared at me. I sensed some type of danger. I remember being very afraid," she said. She then described how he approached the driver's side of the car. As she described her prayer, her voice broke.
He said, "Get out of the car," Mrs. Lombardi testified.
After she refused, she turned and saw a gun -- a .45-caliber semiautomatic, police would later say.
"I immediately hit the accelerator," she said. "I heard a shot."
At least five bullets were fired as she drove away, prosecutors said. One entered the left side of her face and left from the other side. Her nose and upper jaw were broken, she lost all of her teeth and her palate was shattered.
"My upper face needed total reconstruction," she told the jury, adding that she is scheduled for another bone graft in January to help rebuild her jaw. She also said she is being treated by a psychiatrist for problems including post-traumatic stress syndrome.
After largely maintaining her composure on the witness stand, Mrs. Lombardi broke down and cried as her husband and an aunt led her down a courthouse hallway and into the prosecutor's office.
Her husband, Marty Lombardi, said, "She's in a lot worse shape than she looks. She's in major pain every day. . . . We haven't really talked about when or if she'll go back to teaching."