Isiah Greene
Jurors deliberated for their first full day without arriving at a verdict in the case of a Trenton man accused of killing a high-ranking Bloods gang member in 2013.
Isiah Greene sat with his attorney, Mark Fury, in a Mercer County courtroom as jurors asked for playback of various camera angles captured by surveillance cameras at the Donnelly Homes housing complex in the early-morning hours of July 21, 2013.
That’s when Bloods gang member Quaadir “Ace” Gurley was shot and killed, allegedly by Greene, as he went to open the door of his apartment. Prosecutors believe it was an ambush-style killing but have not supplied a motive as to why Greene would have wanted Gurley dead.
Jurors also asked to re-hear Greene’s testimony from earlier in the trial. They will return to court Wednesday to finish hearing Assistant Prosecutor James Scott’s cross examination of Greene before returning to the deliberation room.
Gurley, a notorious gang member and drug crew leader, had been shot on at least two separate occasions before the fatal encounter, according to published reports. He was hit eight times and later succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.
Greene’s defense attorney has proposed the shooting was done at close range, relying on testimony that there was gunpowder residue on Gurley’s body.
Greene has raised a third-party guilt defense, pegging an unidentified black man dressed in all white with a dark complexion as the real shooter. Greene had also been captured by surveillance cameras from a grocery mart on Sanhican Drive wearing a white tank top, white shorts and whie shoes the day before the murder. But he claimed on the stand his clothing was slightly different than the shooter.
He accounted for investigators finding his blood at the housing complex by saying he had been struck by a wayward bullet, possibly one that had ricocheted off buildings when the gunman opened fire on Gurley.
Greene said he had been the housing complex to convince a friend to take him and some friends to a nightclub in Philadelphia after they had been drinking at an all-white affair on Highland Avenue. He said they didn’t want to drive to Philly for fear of getting caught by the cops, but they still drove over to the housing complex.