A neighbor testified about seeing an alternate suspect holding a gun the day a 14-year-old Lawrence boy was shot and killed, but prosecutors questioned her story and countered some details she shared.
Derrick D. Reed, 18, is being tried for first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of Kamarjay Shaw, 14, nearly one year ago. Douglas County District Judge Sally Pokorny previously ruled that Reed, who was 17 years old at the time of the shooting, would be tried as an adult and would not be granted immunity.
Testimony in the trial began Wednesday. Both the state and the defense rested their cases shortly before noon Monday. The jury was sent to take a long break, and the attorneys anticipate giving jury instructions and closing arguments Monday afternoon. (Read more about the case in the links below.)
Reed’s neighbor, who testified during a pretrial hearing on June 2 about what she observed across the street from her house, was called to testify before the jury Monday morning. The neighbor lives across the street and one house down from Reed’s home and was looking outside through her front windows.
Around 5 p.m. March 18, 2023, the neighbor began hearing shouting outside. She looked out her front window and saw a group of teens, some who had metal poles. After a few minutes of hearing and seeing verbal altercations, two gunshots rang.
The width of Maple Lane street, in between the houses on either side, is about 25 feet, and the neighbor estimated her house is set another 50 feet back. That makes her observation distance approximately 75 feet from the commotion.
The neighbor called 911 after hearing the gunshots. Deputy Taylor Zook was one of the first officers to arrive at the shooting scene.
The neighbor told the 911 dispatcher, on the phone; Zook, when he made initial contact with her; and lead detective Kim Nicholson, during their interview the night of the shooting, the same description of who she saw commit the shooting. According to her, the shooter was a male teen with light brown skin, black hair and potentially some facial hair and who was short — like 5 feet tall, she said — and was wearing light colored clothing.
Reed’s defense attorney, Mark Hartman, has previously said the description matches that of Owen Walker, a friend of Reed’s who he’s proposing could be the shooter instead of Reed.
Local law enforcement currently has a warrant out for Walker, 19, but has yet to locate him. According to a flyer posted on the Lawrence police department’s social media accounts, Walker is 5-foot-8. And Nicholson testified Wednesday that Walker “towered” over her 5-foot-2 self when she met with him in the early morning hours the day after the shooting.
The neighbor told law enforcement that she saw the teen she’d described emerge from Reed’s house and come down to the mailbox, and fire two shots from there.
In video footage from another neighbor’s Ring door camera that’s been shown throughout the trial, Reed’s mailbox is shown, and no one can be seen standing by it when the shooting occurred.
On Monday, the neighbor testified that now she does not recall seeing anyone actually fire the gun but that she did see the person holding the gun, and she maintained the same description she previously gave. She said that’s the only discrepancy from her original story. She couldn’t recall Monday whether she backed away from her window or turned around after viewing the person holding the gun.
Chief Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Tatum on Monday played video footage from Zook’s body camera. In the video, the neighbor is with Zook in his car, and they’re pulling away from the scene to head to the police station for an interview.
The neighbor points toward Kamarjay’s group of friends, who were standing by the apartments they ran back to after the shooting, near Reed’s house. They were being held and questioned by police while Kamarjay was being tended to in the apartment.
She picks out one of the boys — who is a tall, light brown-skinned teen male with black hair and potentially some facial hair — and says that’s who she saw. Zook tells her that isn’t likely, and the neighbor responds that if that’s not the shooter she saw, he looks very similar to him.
Nicholson on Monday testified that police later determined the person the neighbor had pointed out to Zook was one of Kamarjay’s friends who was running away with him when he was shot.
When Tatum asked the neighbor on Monday how tall she believed Zook to be when she interacted with him, the neighbor said he’s a little taller than herself. She is 5-foot-5 and Zook is 6-foot-4.
After prosecutors rested, Hartman asked the judge to dismiss the case, saying that the state has not met its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Reed was responsible for the crime. Pokorny denied that request.
All arrestees and defendants in criminal cases should be presumed not guilty unless and until they are convicted.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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