GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — Key witnesses to a shooting by a suspected gang member on trial for murder are unreliable, a defense attorney said Tuesday.
"The witnesses who can tell you what happened are a group of, quite frankly, lying teenagers," said Defense Attorney Christopher Kessel in his opening statement. His client, Juan Sandro Cabrera, is charged with killing 14-year-old Troy "TJ" Wells at the Hampton Inn in Holland Township on Feb. 16.
Kessel went on to say several witnesses had lied under oath and were only concerned with clearing their names.
Witnesses testified in April that Cabrera was a member of the Latin Kings gang and posed for a picture holding a rifle the night of the shooting.
The case is not complicated, said Assistant Ottawa County Prosecutor JoEllen Haas in her opening statement.
"The defendant came out of room 230 with an assault rifle, shot TJ no fewer than six times from a few feet away," Haas said. "TJ was unarmed. That's what happened."
She said surveillance video from the hotel will corroborate her point. Witnesses at the preliminary hearing said the shooting happened after a Latin King got into got into a fight with Wells, who was thought to be affiliated with the rival Gangster Disciples.
Cabrera was arrested nearly two weeks after the shooting in Watersmeet, Michigan, more than 500 miles from the scene.
Initially, authorities charged the wrong person in the shooting death after multiple people misidentified the suspect, Haas said.
"We will know at one point or another each one of these kids is lying because their stories intersect drastically in ways that can't possibly both be true," Kessel said.
The jury was selected Tuesday afternoon in Judge Karen Miedema's courtroom.
DAY 2:
Two rifles and an item of clothing found at the murder scene appear to be linked to Cabrera.
The guns, a Ruger AR 556 and a POF-USA P-15, were found along with receipts listing Cabrera as the owner, according to Blair Davis, crime scene technician for the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office.
In addition to the weapons, investigators found spent shell casings and nearly 90 bullets. Forensic specialists linked eight casings to the Ruger AR 556.
Wells was shot between six and seven times; three shots to the torso were fatal, said Dr. Stephen Cohle, deputy medical examiner for Ottawa County.
"The liver was shredded," Cohle said. "You could pick it up in one piece like you can a normal liver, but it was extensively torn from the velocity of the bullet passing through it. It looked like it was put in a meat grinder."
Davis also showed jurors several articles of clothing, including black bandannas and a sweatshirt that said, "KING."
"It's a hooded sweatshirt, and on the back you have gold lettering that says, 'Silent,'" she said. Several witnesses testified at the preliminary exam in April that Silent was Cabrera's nickname in the Latin Kings.
A list of eyewitnesses are expected to testify Thursday.
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