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In testimony, man denies shooting
The victim bled to death from a gunshot wound to his chest, a pathologist said.
YOUNGSTOWN — Testifying in his own defense, Dion D. Weatherspoon denied carrying a gun, but he admitted being at the scene where William Burr was fatally shot on July 8, 2007.
Weatherspoon, 20, of Hilton Avenue, is on trial, charged with aggravated murder with a firearm specification in Burr’s death.
A seven-woman, five-man jury is hearing the case, with Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court presiding. The trial resumes at 9 a.m. today.
Weatherspoon is charged with shooting Burr, 27, of East Midlothian Boulevard, Struthers, as Burr sat in his red Chevrolet Cavalier outside Angelo’s Pizza Shop, 3215 South Ave.
Weatherspoon testified Wednesday that a store video accurately reflects that he entered the shop at 7:51 p.m. that Sunday, tried to order food, left a few seconds later after being told the shop was closed and ran south on South Avenue after shots were fired.
The video, which was played during the testimony of Detective Sgt. Ron Rodway, who was a prosecution witness, and during Weatherspoon’s testimony, includes the staccato sound of six gunshots, but it doesn’t show the shooter.
When he emerged from the pizza shop, where he described himself as being a regular customer, Weatherspoon began running as soon as he saw a gunman firing at the man inside the red car, Weatherspoon told the jury. “I ran while the shooting was still happening,” he testified.
The victim, later identified as Burr, crawled out of the car, stumbled down an incline, collapsed behind the pizza shop and was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center, where he was pronounced dead, Robert J. Andrews, assistant county prosecutor, told the jury in his opening statement.
When his defense lawyer, Thomas E. Zena, asked him what he did for a living, Weatherspoon replied: “I sell drugs.”
The defendant said he first approached the red car’s driver in an attempt to sell him crack cocaine, but the man said he was waiting for his regular dealer.
After entering and leaving the pizza shop, Weatherspoon said he again intended to try to sell the drug to the same man, when the gunman appeared and began firing into the red car.
Under cross-examination by Andrews, Weatherspoon admitted he did not call police to report the shooting, that he learned on July 10 that an arrest warrant had been issued for him, and that he tried to flee when police arrested him on the city’s South Side on July 18.
Earlier Wednesday, Donna Rose, a forensic scientist with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, testified that she found “particles highly indicative” of gunshot residue in samples taken from the basketball shirt Weatherspoon is alleged to have worn on the day of the shooting and on Burr’s hands.
Such findings are consistent with someone recently having fired a gun, or having been near the discharge, or having touched something bearing the residue, she said.
Testifying by video, Dr. Robert Belding, the former deputy county coroner who performed the autopsy on Burr, ruled the death a homicide and said Burr bled to death from a gunshot wound that perforated his lungs.
The other gunshot wounds, which were nonlethal, were one each in Burr’s left and right forearms, two in his left hip and one in his upper back, Dr. Belding said.
Anthony Marzullo, a city police crime lab officer, testified that police recovered spent .25-caliber shell casings in and near the red Cavalier, but found no weapon at the crime scene.
Rodway testified that police never found a gun linked to this shooting, but he added that it’s not unusual for police not to find a weapon in a homicide case.