Keith Wells-Holmes
A man known on the streets as Blick was having “beef” with some people two days before Trenton graffiti artist Andre Corbett was murdered in January 2013.
Blick is actually Isiah Greene, according to testimony in the murder trial of Keith Wells-Holmes. Holmes is charged with gunning down Corbett in broad daylight outside an apartment complex on Hoffman Avenue and Oakland Street.
What does Blick’s beef and text messages referencing bullets have to do with the death of Corbett? Everything if you’re defense attorney Caroline Turner, whose theory is premised on a third-party guilt defense that raised the specter Greene killed Corbett.
For prosecutors, the stray pieces of evidence amounted to nothing more than “speculation,” Assistant Prosecutor James Scott said. He dismissively swept aside the fact Greene’s DNA was found on a cup inside a gold van linked with the slaying during his summation Tuesday.
The van belonged to the girlfriend of codefendant Zihqwan “Woodiey” Clemens. Clemens’ girlfriend testified earlier in the trial Greene was known on the streets as Blick; a detective testified he knew Greene by the moniker Blaze.
That was one of the many discrepancies that emerged at trial. Jurors were finally handed the case late Tuesday after a judge charged them on the law. They passed a note to the judge asking for playback of footage of the shooting and for enlarged photos of specific articles of clothing the shooter wore at the time Corbett was gunned down.
Prosecutors are firm any insinuation they have the wrong man and Greene, who was never charged for Corbett’s death but is jailed on unrelated murder and attempted murder charges, was the killer was unsupported by evidence, which points squarely at Wells-Holmes.
Scott also attempted to fill in what Wells-Holmes’ attorney has called glaring holes in the case against her client, suggesting for the first time Wells-Holmes had a reason to kill Corbett.
Scott said the motive came from the defendant’s mouth in an interview with police. Wells-Holmes had told detectives he knew Corbett as someone who cracked jokes and would “talk s---.”
“A lot of people take that stuff seriously,” Wells-Holmes told detectives in a taped interview that was shown to jurors.
Scott said one is left with the impression after viewing silent surveillance footage of the shooting that Wells-Holmes pumped multiple rounds into Corbett at close range after the two allegedly exchange words.
“He decided at that minute he was going to kill Andre Corbett,” Scott said.
Wells-Holmes’ attorney is insistent her client is innocent and has built her defense on the idea that prosecutors got the wrong man. It’s a phrase she invoked once again in her closing argument while pointing to facts she alluded to at the outset of the trial.
She said her left-handed client wore different clothing than the right-handed shooter, was several inches shorter than Greene and had no reason to kill Corbett.
Turner also attacked the credibility of the witnesses who testified against her client.
“Pictures don’t lie,” she said. “People do.”
Turner urged jurors to completely discount the story Clemens gave detectives implicating Wells-Holmes as the shooter. Turner did not even seize on Clemens’ testimony under oath exonerating her client of the murder because she said doing so would be disingenuous.
“I would like to cherry pick a couple of the things he said and call them reliable but that would be dishonest of me,” she said. “False in one, false in all. He lied about everything.”
Turner then turned her sights on Michael Barnes, known as “Murder Mike.”
The convicted felon and admitted drug dealer told jurors he saw Corbett’s killer and was “100 percent” it was a man he recognized as “Zeek’s cousin.” Wells-Holmes had a family member named Zeek who lived on Oakland Street. Barnes said Well-Holmes frequently visited.
Barnes stepped forward with information about the alleged shooter a year after the murder. He cut a deal with prosecutors to resolve charges of aggravated assault, weapons offenses and resisting for probation and truthful testimony.
Turner suggested Barnes was anything but truthful. She said his vantage point was obscured and he would have had a hard time identifying the shooter out of a small glass slit in the window, especially while he was preoccupied looking out for police because he was dealing crack cocaine.
“Are we really going to believe the word of a jailhouse snitch?” she said. “You can’t believe a word that Murder Mike says. The state is actually pretty desperate to get this conviction if it’s using Murder Mike as its star witness.”