UPDATE: Attorneys point to different shooters in Cooper murder
1:42 PM
By Michele Linck Journal staff writer | Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2008
SIOUX CITY -- Except for who pulled the trigger, the prosecution and defense attorney each painted very similar pictures Thursday morning in their opening statements in the murder trial of Jeremy Williams, 31, of Sioux City.
Williams is charged with first-degree counts of murder, kidnapping and robbery in the Jan. 15 shooting death of Zachary Cooper, whose body was found two days later on a dirt road near Lawton, Iowa.
Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Terry Ganzel told the jury Williams was one of two men who each shot Cooper once as he kneeled in front of Williams car on the rural road.
Ganzel described for the jury of seven women and five men how Cooper did not die there. Instead, after the other four men present left in Williams' car, he said Cooper began walking toward a house. He said Cooper stopped, removed one of his socks and used it to slow the blood flowing from his bullet wounds. Later he dropped that sock, took off his other sock to use it the same way, walking further before collapsing and dying more than a mile down the road.
Williams' attorney, Priscilla Forsyth, told the jury that her client owned the only car among the five men involved in the marijuana deal which started the chain of events leading to Cooper's death. She said he tried to leave the apartment where five men had gathered for a marijuana deal, but was threatened and forced to drive the group to the country. And, although he was ordered by one of the men, Samuel Wright, to shoot Cooper, he instead fired the gun to the side, purposely missing him.
Opens statements in the trial began late Thursday morning after more than two days of jury selection.
Wright, 24, of Sioux City, is also accused of shooting Cooper once that night. He faces charges of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree robbery.
Williams is charged with first-degree counts of murder, kidnapping and robbery in the Jan. 15 shooting death of Zachary Cooper, whose body was found two days later on a dirt road near Lawton, Iowa.
Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Terry Ganzel told the jury Williams was one of two men who each shot Cooper once as he kneeled in front of Williams car on the rural road.
Ganzel described for the jury of seven women and five men how Cooper did not die there. Instead, after the other four men present left in Williams' car, he said Cooper began walking toward a house. He said Cooper stopped, removed one of his socks and used it to slow the blood flowing from his bullet wounds. Later he dropped that sock, took off his other sock to use it the same way, walking further before collapsing and dying more than a mile down the road.
Williams' attorney, Priscilla Forsyth, told the jury that her client owned the only car among the five men involved in the marijuana deal which started the chain of events leading to Cooper's death. She said he tried to leave the apartment where five men had gathered for a marijuana deal, but was threatened and forced to drive the group to the country. And, although he was ordered by one of the men, Samuel Wright, to shoot Cooper, he instead fired the gun to the side, purposely missing him.
Opens statements in the trial began late Thursday morning after more than two days of jury selection.
Wright, 24, of Sioux City, is also accused of shooting Cooper once that night. He faces charges of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree robbery.
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