Michael Hamlin sat in the witness chair last week for more than three hours and ratted out his cousin. In a calm, often meek voice, he told a Superior Court judge and jurors and family members how he and Percy Jordan sneaked up behind New York Times journalist David Rosenbaum last January, how Jordan clubbed him with a plastic pipe, how he himself snatched Rosenbaum’s wallet as he fell, how they drove off in their dark Cadillac and used Rosenbaum’s credit cards to buy gas and tires — after they drove into Silver Spring and robbed someone else.

Hamlin and Jordan are behind bars now and will be for years. Hamlin had pleaded guilty; on Tuesday the jury convicted Jordan of murder in the first degree.