Jurors in Howard County Circuit Court Friday watched Daymar Wimbish repeatedly deny any involvement in the shooting death of Jason Pridgen Batts in Columbia last year during a recording of police questioning.

During the interrogation, detectives Aaron Dombrowsky and Joseph King repeatedly pressed Wimbish on his involvement in his slaying only to be rebuffed.

“Tell me what Daymar did that day,” King asked him at one point, to which Wimbish replied, “Daymar did nothing.”

On the fourth day of Wimbish's murder trial, the tape showed Wimbish repeatedly deflecting detectives when they tried to get him to describe his involvement in the shooting.

“I figure I’m going to jail I might as well go to jail for the big one,” he said at one point, but declined to elaborate. At another point, he again denied his involvement in the shooting.

“Y’all know ... well I ain’t killed nobody,” he said. “You ain’t find no gun on me,” he told detectives at another point. He also repeatedly told detectives to get on with charging him with the crime. And, he said he would rather die than go to jail.

“I’d rather my mother see me dead than see me behind bars,” he said.

The interrogation tape came as the prosecution wound down its case against Wimbish, 19, of Owings Mills, who is charged with the first-degree murder of Batts.

Batts was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Stevens Forest Apartments, on Stevens Forest Road in Columbia, in May 2008.

The trial began Tuesday and is expected to go to the jury Monday.

On Thursday, a state medical examiner described in graphic detail Thursday how Jason Pridgen Batts was shot to death last year in Columbia.

Batts died of a single shotgun blast between the shoulder blades, when a slug pierced his spine, paralyzing him from the chest down, according to Melissa Brassell, who performed an autopsy on Batts. The slug eventually shot up into Batts’ neck and killed him, Brassell told jurors.

When Assistant State’s Attorney Lisa Broten asked Brassell how Batts died, she replied “Homicide.”

In his opening statement Tuesday, Wimbish's attorney, Spencer Hecht, said he did not dispute that a murder took place, just Wimbish’s involvement, which he said amounted to merely being present at the time of the shooting.

Prosecutors have said that while Wimbish was not the trigger man, he was instrumental in planning the crime.

On Wednesday, a 16-year-old girl told the jury that Wimbish ordered her to distract the driver of a car parked at a Columbia apartment complex, and that Wimbish was standing behind the car when another man shot and killed one of the car's occupants.

The girl, who prosecutors asked not be identified because of her age, also said that Wimbish had told those involved in the shooting death not to talk about it and had threatened her family if she testified against him. She said her family moved from Owings Mills because of fear of retaliation from Wimbish.

But under cross-examination by Wimbish's attorney, the girl admitted that she had told numerous lies to police in the days following the shooting, even after she had been granted immunity from the state for her testimony. When asked why she lied, she said she was scared of Wimbish.

She also said she never saw Wimbish in possession of the gun that day and admitted to participating in the robbery, although she denied her own complicity in Batts’ death.

During opening arguments in the trial Tuesday, prosecutors and defense attorneys clashed when Hecht called the prosecution’s case “pathetic.”

Hecht told jurors that prosecutors could not settle on a credible story for how Wimbish was involved in Batts' shooting.

“The fact that they don’t know their own theory is pathetic,” Hecht told jurors.

Assistant State’s Attorney Colleen McGuinn objected to the remark and Judge Lenore Gelfman sustained her objection.

The exchange came as the two sides wrangled over the role Wimbish played in Batts’ death.

Broten told jurors Wimbish was a member of the Bloods gang and played a key role in developing the plan to rob Elijah Jackson, of Columbia, who was targeted for informing on a gang member in a separate case. Wimbish then participated in the attempted robbery of Jackson at the Columbia apartment complex, she said, a robbery that went awry when Batts was shot by another gang member.

While Wimbish did not pull the trigger, Broten said, “he shares responsibility for the murder that happened.”

Broten described the killing as gang-related and said Wimbish belonged to “an underworld whose inhabitants follow a different set of rules and follow a different code.”

She said Elijah Jackson had informed on Ronald Derrick McConnell, which caused McConnell to gather fellow Bloods members, including Wimbish, to gain revenge.

“In the Bloods world, snitching is not tolerated,” Broten said.

At the Oakland Mills apartment complex, Wimbish got out of his car and approached Batts’ car in an attempt to rob Jackson, which Broten said makes Wimbish responsible for the killing.
 
Hecht, however, said Wimbish was only brought into the robbery after it was planned, and was used by another gang member merely to find his way to Columbia from Baltimore County. He said his client was a victim of guilt by association and that he had never met Batts, Jackson or McConnell.

“The defendant’s presence at the shooting does not make him guilty,” Hecht said.

Hecht also argued that the claim that the robbery was in retaliation for McConnell being informed upon was unbelievable, because gang members typically beat up or kill those who have informed upon them.

“The entire snitch theory is manufactured,” Hecht said. “Just because he has no motive doesn’t mean they’re allowed to make one up,” he said.

He added that Broten’s emphasis on Wimbish’s gang involvement was a red herring. “This shooting is not gang-related,” he said.

The state’s theory that Wimbish planned to rob Jackson was inconsistent, Hecht said, because Wimbish had no way of knowing how much money Jackson had on him.

Closing arguments in the case are expected Monday morning, according to a spokesman for the Howard County state's attorney.

McConnell, the 21-year-old who prosecutors said masterminded the attempted robbery and shooting, was acquitted of first-degree murder by a Howard County jury after a trial last month. He was, however, found guilty of the lesser charges of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm and possessing an unregistered firearm.

The trial of Lamont Johnson, who prosecutors claim pulled the trigger in the shooting, is scheduled for Aug. 7.

This story has been updated.

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