Christopher Webster said he saw his best friend, Howard Grant Jr., killed in 2008. He told police the attacker was James Berry III, Webster's boxing trainer and a friend to both men.
Now, as Berry stands trial for murder this week, Webster had to be arrested to get him to come to court as a witness. And with Grant's father looking on from the audience, Webster disavowed any knowledge of the shooter's identity and said police had coerced the statement.
Berry, 27, is accused of killing Grant, 18, and Grant's cousin, Justin Berry, 19, in an ambush on Pennsylvania Avenue on Oct. 12, 2008.
Berry, a once-promising young boxer with Olympic dreams who is not related to Justin Berry, has been charged in three attacks resulting in five deaths, which are being tried separately.
Webster's testimony on the second day of trial Thursday underscored law enforcement's difficulty in obtaining information and bringing indictments against Berry until late 2013.
Prosecutors say the suspects and victims were part of a group of close friends who dealt drugs and hung out in an area they called "D-block," near Division and Bloom streets in Druid Heights.
The feud began when one of the members, Brian Goodwyn was killed in June 2008. Prosecutors say James Berry spread a rumor that fellow member Romie Zeigler was responsible. Ziegler was killed days later at a candlelight vigil for Goodwyn.
Assistant State's Attorney LaRai Everett told jurors in opening statements that the group became divided, withHoward Grant believing that James Berry had set up Zeigler.
Over the ensuing months, Grant was ambushed and shot twice, but survived. Grant's uncle was shot and paralyzed in one of the attacks, Everett said.
Everett said James Berry was persistent: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, as the saying goes," she said.
She said James Berry sought the assistance of Quinzell Covington and the attack was eventually carried out, with Justin Berry, a freshman at Morgan State University, killed along with Grant. Both victims had young children.
Covington is expected to testify against Berry. He has pleaded guilty in the case but will not serve additional time under an agreement with prosecutors. He is already serving 25 years for a murder in Baltimore County.
Andrew Northrup, one of Berry's attorneys, told jurors that his client is innocent. He called the state's case a "theory based on rumor, conjecture and innuendo, not evidence." The witnesses have "shifting stories and reasons to lie," he said.
Grant's father, Howard Grant Sr., testified Wednesday that Webster called him the night of the shooting.
"Dad" — that's what some of his son's friends called him — "Howard's been shot. It's bad. You need to get here," Grant tearfully recalled.
After Grant's testimony, Berry could be seen wiping his eyes with his tie.
Webster was interviewed by police three times before giving information that linked Berry and Covington to the attacks, defense attorneys noted. Prosecutors played a tape from December 2008 in which Webster told police he was "75 percent" sure Berry was Grant's killer. Two weeks later, he recanted his statements, and the case went uncleared until officials indicted Berry in 2013.
Asked about hearing his voice on the tape, Webster said, "I don't recall making that statement, but that is my voice."
Webster said police coerced him into identifying Berry. "I was 19, young, naive," he said of his taped statement. He offered to take a lie detector test.
Berry has additional court dates scheduled in the killings of brothers Allen and Darien Horton in 2012. He also is charged with firing 30 bullets at three people sitting on a bench in Bolton Hill in March 2011, killing Angelo Fitzgerald.