An inmate testified Thursday he was in the car when a 16-year-old shooter killed Charles Baird at a New Lenox gas station in 2020.
Marquez Whitfield, 20, serving a five-year sentence at the Illinois Department of Corrections for unlawful use of a weapon, testified that he was with several others in a stolen black SUV the night they arrived at a Circle K gas station, where 19-year-old Baird was fatally shot.
He received immunity in exchange for his testimony, and said May 11, 2020, his group pulled up to the gas station, parking across from Baird’s car. Whitfield said he got out and tried the door handle on Baird’s vehicle, but finding it was locked returned to the stolen car and placed a gun in his backpack.
Whitfield said he saw another man, who he later identified as the defendant, exit the vehicle wearing black pants with a white stripe and a ski mask and approach Baird, who was walking back toward his car from the gas station store.
Whitfield testified that he saw the defendant shoot Baird in the back as Baird attempted to run back into the store, using a handgun with an extended magazine.
Baird began crawling after being struck, Whitfield said.
After the shooting, Whitfield said the defendant returned to the stolen car and claimed he had “feared for his life” when asked why he shot Baird.
Whitfield said he and the defendant were dropped off at a home in Harvey that night, and said the shooter was not carrying a gun when he entered the car.
The defendant, now 21 and from Harvey, was arrested 19 hours after the shooting and is on trial for first-degree murder. The Daily Southtown is not using his name because he was a minor at the time.
Former Harvey police Officer Terry Young testified he responded to a call of a suspicious vehicle May 9, 2020, finding several juveniles standing near a red Hyundai Elantra outside the defendant’s home. The Elantra is the same vehicle that was used during the theft of a black SUV from a home in Lockport before the shooting, witnesses testified Wednesday.
Charles Baird. (David Baird)
When the officer approached the home, the juveniles quickly ran inside, he said. However, Young said under cross examination he was not able to identify any of the juveniles.
Whitfield said he was involved in stealing the SUV and later drove the vehicle back to his home.
Louis Masucci, a former Dolton police officer, said he responded to a car accident May 11, after the shooting, and identified the defendant as one of the people in the vehicle.
The defendant was wearing a gray hoodie, black pants with a white stripe down the side and shoes with a white stripe, Masucci said.
Masucci said when he took the defendant to the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, the defendant told him he had a pistol but he gave it to someone else. The defendant did not provide any details about the type of pistol, whether it was real or any information about the person he gave it to, Masucci said.
Masucci said there was no audio recording or body camera footage that can corroborate this interaction and the defendant’s statements.
The shooter was also wearing black pants with a white stripe in surveillance footage from the Circle K on the night of the shooting. When the defendant was arrested in January 2020, a Midlothian police officer said the defendant was wearing similar pants with a white stripe running down the leg.
Black pants with a white stripe were tested for gunpowder residue by forensic scientist Kimberlee Gruenstein, who testified that four samples taken from the pants did not have traces of gunshot residue. Gruenstein also said a lack of residue does not mean they were not in the vicinity when the gun was shot.
Matthew Shanahan, previously an evidence technician for the New Lenox Police Department, said he recovered a fingerprint on the rear passenger door handle of Baird’s Subaru. However, prosecutor Katie Rabenda read a stipulation the prints did not match the defendant.
The trial will resume Friday at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet.
smoilanen@chicagotribune.com
