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Two survivors of shootings testified Tuesday in Nasser Hamad trial
Hamad Trial: Day 2
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Chris Becker, assistant Trumbull Co. prosecutor, questions John Shively about the shootings in Nasser Hamad's aggravated murder trial today.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The two survivors of the gun attack that killed two young men and injured three other people at Nasser Hamad’s house Feb. 25 on state Route 46 in Howland testified at Hamad’s aggravated-murder trial Tuesday.
John Shively, 17, spent nearly three hours on the witness stand, questioned by an assistant prosecutor and extensively cross-examined by an attorney for Hamad about a fight that Shively said unexpectedly turned deadly.
Hamad is on trial on two counts of aggravated murder and several counts of attempted aggravated murder and could get the death penalty if convicted of certain charges.
Shively’s mother, April Trent-Vokes, then testified for a half-hour before the trial concluded for the day. Trent-Vokes will resume her testimony at 9 a.m. today.
Shively was grazed by a bullet. Trent-Vokes was hit six times, including in the head, arm and leg. She walked with a limp on her way in and out of the courtroom.
Shively testified that he wanted to “resolve” a dispute between Hamad and his distant cousin, Bryce Hendrickson, whom he had never met in person before Feb. 25.
So when his mother returned home that afternoon, he told her about vulgar comments Hamad made that day on a Facebook thread between Hamad and Hendrickson, 20.
“It was just horrible,” she said of the messages. “And I said I thought it was ridiculous and I was going to go over there and defuse the situation,” she said.
Hendrickson died Sept. 30 of an apparent drug overdose at a home in McDonald, leaving only Shively and Trent-Vokes to testify on behalf of the five people who went to Hamad’s house that day.
Killed were her son, Josh Haber, 19, and another cousin of Shively’s, Joshua Williams, 20. Prosecutors say Hamad opened fire on the five as they returned to their minivan after a fight with Hamad near the front of Hamad’s house. After the fight, Hamad went into the house, reloaded his gun and returned to fire additional shots at the five, prosecutors say.
Shively’s brother, Haber, decided to go along to Hamad’s house, and they picked up Hendrickson at his house and another distant cousin, Williams, 20, because Williams was visiting Hendrickson at the time, Shively said.
Shively and his brother had never met Hendrickson or Williams before that day, Shively said. He, his mother and his two brothers had been living in Warren for only 12 days at the time, having come from Florida, Shively said.
Shively said his only intention was to “resolve” the dispute, but when Hamad tackled him down a hill, the situation changed.
Shively, a tall, dark-haired youth with a mustache, said he got out of the van first, and Hamad approached him “kind of aggressively,” Shively said. It caused his mom to jump out of her driver’s seat and say to Hamad: “What’s wrong with you talking to teenagers like that?” Shively said of the Facebook comments.
When Hamad “tackled” him, everything changed, Shively said. “If he wouldn’t have tackled me down a hill, it would have remained verbal,” Shively said.
That’s when Hendrickson, Haber and Williams got out of the car and joined in on the fight, Shively said. When Shively saw that his brother and “distant cousins” had started kicking Hamad, he realized things had gone too far, and he pulled his brother away, he said.
All five returned to the van fairly quickly and Trent-Vokes tried to back the van out of the driveway and onto Route 46. But Hamad came out of the house with a gun and started firing, Shively said.
One of Hamad’s attorneys, Geoffrey Oglesby, questioned Shively’s contention that Shively had never met his distant cousins before that day and had formulated no plan before or on the way to Hamad’s house.
Also Monday, attorneys for Hamad renewed their request for an expert witness to testify as to whether Hamad suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder on the day of the shootings.
Judge Ronald Rice apparently will have to decide in the next few days whether to allow the expert witness to testify in the trial.