Testimony on Tuesday in the trial of two Lexington, Kentucky men accused of murdering U.S. Marine Cpl. Jonathan Price and injuring his wife Megan Price involved descriptions by medics of their futile attempts to render aid to the wounded Marine.
Firefighter Andrew Hatfield testified that he was dispatched to the parking lot where the Prices were both shot near. The Prices were there waiting for friends who had planned to join them in celebrating Megan Price’s birthday.
Hatfield said that he arrived at the scene to find Jonathan Price laying on his back and was not breathing. Hatfield got Price into the ambulance, where Hatfield said his goal was try to revive circulation and to get Price to breathe on his own. The CPR did not save Price’s life.
Employees at the apartment complex where defendant Dawan Mulazim lived with his then-girlfriend and current wife said the wife appeared to be cleaning items out of a Crown Victoria and depositing them in a dumpster. Several witnesses said the wife’s movements and motions attracted their attention. One employee said the wife was strangely careful in the way she was throwing the trash bags into the dumpster considering it was a hot day in late July and the dumpster reeked. The employees retrieved some of the items. One was a New York Yankees baseball cap, which appeared to be brand new. The cap was sent to a crime lab for DNA analysis.
Later Tuesday, an ATF agent testified about how authorities came to possess what they believe is the murder weapon. A criminal informant notified the ATF that a subject named Antonio Frye was attempting to sell a .45 caliber Springfield semiautomatic handgun. The informant was sent on a so-called “controlled buy” to purchase the weapon from Frye. When he was later arrested, Frye refused to cooperate with the authorities. Therefore, the ATF was unable to track down how Frye came to possess the gun. The gun prosecutors believe to be the murder weapon is black. However, Megan Price said the gun used to kill her husband had as silver barrel. The ATF agent said he was unsure whether the model of gun in question is also sold with a silver barrel. (A Law&Crime review of weapons data online suggests that it is.)
Testimony from the ATF agent which suggested that the criminal informant claimed Frye was selling the gun for someone else appeared to have been met with a hearsay objection. (Objections in this case, if any, are not made in open court.) However, attorneys approached the judge, and the defense was allowed to clarify that the information came from the informant, not from Frye.
Lexington Police Det. Franz Wolff testified about several conversations he had with victim Megan Price. During the course of several days, Price was able to provide greater detail about her attackers, including descriptions of the presumed ages and complexions of her attackers. She said that the first attacker had a lighter complexion that the second attacker and that the second attacker might even have been wearing a mask. Price originally recalled only one gun, a silver semi-automatic handgun, but in a subsequent interview added that the other attacker carried a revolver. The attacker who shot her was wearing a white shirt and kept his hair in shoulder-length dreadlocks, Price told the detective. Jonathan Price was shot by a second suspect who wore a dark-colored shirt.
Wolf said that defendant Mulazim claimed about a month after Price’s death that he didn’t know his co-defendant Quinsinio Canada, Wolff testified. Mulazim and Canada are actually related.
[Image via the U.S. Marines]
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