He shot me. His name is Vick.
Donnie Hill scrawled the words on the back of a police photo lineup from his hospital bed, naming the masked shooter who gunned him down in the Waverly Shopping Center on Nov. 27, 2006. Next, he would identify a longtime neighbor, Yusef Winston-Bey, as the man with Victor Rickey Shuron Jr. in a van that followed him and his girlfriend to the shopping center.
Monday, a jury began deliberating the case against Shuron and Winston-Bey that prosecutor Doug Guidorizzi described as a classic case of witness intimidation. Hill planned on testifying against the two in a Baltimore County felony case just days after he was gunned down.
“This happened in broad daylight,” Guidorizzi said. “There were no attempts to rob Mr. Hill; no attempts to take his car. These were the two that had the motive.”
But defense attorneys said the pair had credible alibis: a clerk at a Towson pool hall testified she sold Winston-Bey a lottery ticket at the time of the shooting. Family members testified Shuron was in New York that day.
Margaret Mead, attorney for Winston-Bey, said Hill?s version of the shooting differed from other witnesses: the color of the gun, the shooter?s gloves, and whether or not he was wearing a hat, and the weather.
“Mr. Winston-Bey didn?t care Mr. Hill was testifying against him,” Mead said. “Who cared? He hadn?t told the truth then and he isn?t telling the truth now.”
The case is a “classic example of the state trying to put a square peg into around hole,” said Mark Van Bavel, attorney for Shuron.
Van Bavel said Hill has relied on heavy pain medication for several years after a motorcycle crash, which could “fog his mind.” He said Hill would have had to identify Shuron by his eyes only, because of the mask.
