Prosecutors say they have witnesses who saw 21-year-old Antonio Moore shoot Michael Jay Francis to death with a rifle in the backyard of a Brooklyn Park rowhouse and stuff him into the trunk of a stolen convertible. And, prosecutors say, police later found Francis' bloody clothes in the car.
But missing from the opening statements yesterday in Moore's trial was any mention of a piece of evidence rarely unaccounted for in murder cases: the body.
While murder prosecutions in cases in which no body has been found are rare, they are not unfamiliar to Maryland prosecutors. A Howard County man was convicted of first-degree murder in 2001, five years after his wife disappeared without a trace. Paul Stephen Riggins Jr. later led authorities to her body.
And Anne Arundel prosecutors were pressing ahead on charging two men with stabbing, beating and burying Joseph Aaron Demarest alive in 1996, even before one of the suspects directed police to his remains in 2003.
In 1989, now Montgomery County State's Attorney John J. McCarthy won the state's first murder conviction in a case without a body, calling more than 50 witnesses and suggesting a motive for the murder of Lisa Tu at the hands of her husband Gregory Tu.
The stakes in the prosecution of Moore run high for Anne Arundel County prosecutors, because if Moore is acquitted, he cannot be tried for the same crime twice under the Constitution's "double jeopardy" clause - even if a body, accompanied by evidence, is later discovered.
Kristin Riggin, a spokeswoman for Anne Arundel County state's attorney, said the lack of a body in a case is not impossible for prosecutors to overcome.
"Frequently in a homicide case, a major part of the case is what injury the victim died from, an autopsy and the testimony of the medical examiner ... and in this case, that evidence is obviously missing. But it doesn't negate the fact that this man has clearly been murdered."
Part of the difficulty in some cases is proving that a murder occurred, said Abraham Dash, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law.
"Having people actually saying they saw an attack on the victim, can almost prove there was a murder," Dash said. "For example, if you have someone saying they saw a defendant shooting a victim five times in the chest, that's pretty good stuff."
According to the opening statement of Assistant State's Attorney Lawrence Caporale, witnesses either saw or heard the gunshots that killed Francis, 21.
On the night of April 13, 2007, Moore arrived at a friend's house in the 5100 block of Brookwood Road, a rowhouse where he had been staying with his girlfriend, Sierra Monet Anderson, Caporale said. He was carrying a black bag that contained a large rifle, he said.
Moore demanded marijuana from another man who came to the house, Teiko Tyrone Johnson, 31, and repeatedly hit him in the face with the butt of the rifle, prosecutors said, adding that Anderson joined in the beating.
Francis, a mutual friend of those at the house, arrived sometime in the early morning hours of June 14, and attempted to sway Moore from continuing to attack Johnson, prosecutors said.
Johnson was able to flee. But Moore, according to prosecutors, shot Francis at close-range with a 9 mm rifle after Francis begged for his life.
Police found the gun three weeks later in a wooded area near the scene of the crime, according to prosecutors.
Moore, of the 3800 block of Third St., was arrested April 19 in Baltimore, driving a stolen car, according to police. He is charged with first-degree murder, assault, kidnapping and reckless endangerment.
In his opening statement, defense attorney William M. Davis attacked the credibility of the state's witnesses. .
During cross-examination, he attempted to show that witnesses' statements were inconsistent with what they previously told police and a grand jury.
He added that DNA taken from the supposed murder weapon was not from Moore.
"Respect me and you live longer," Caporale, the prosecutor, said in court, quoting Moore's words to Baltimore police after his arrest. "They didn't respect me, that's why that [expletive] had to die."
nicole.fuller@baltsun.com