TRENTON – A jury deliberated only briefly yesterday about the fate of suspected murder plotter Keith Williams, following a day full of summations by the prosecutor and defense lawyer and the instructions of the judge.
Keith Williams
Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier sent the jurors home as the courts were closing, after they had only about 30 minutes to talk about the case.
In his closing, defense lawyer Mark Fury called his client a jackass for talking for more than four hours to detectives investigating the murder of Arrell Bell, 20, on May 1, 2008. Still, the defenseman noted, the cops can’t place the suspect at the murder scene and misinterpreted some of the gang slang used by the suspects.
If Lt. Ron Hampton of the state police was such an expert on gangs and gang lingo, Fury asked, how come he didn’t know that “neff” is street talk for nephew?
In response, Assistant Mercer Prosecutor Brian McCauley said Fury was wrong to suggest a faulty and incomplete search of My Space records by authorities figured into the arrest of Williams and three codefendants slated for trial later this year.
“The records are verifiable and intact,” McCauley said. He also said authorities know Williams didn’t pull the trigger, but accused him of setting up the execution and of being at the scene in Stacy Park that day when others shot Bell, who took bullets behind both ears.
McCauley ended his presentation with a snippet from the video in which Williams said, “I didn’t pull the trigger, but I did commit conspiracy.”