Homicide Watch Trenton

Moments before Tracy Crews was shot in the kitchen of his Whittaker Avenue home in September 2008, he put up his hands to try to shield himself, a medical examiner testified Thursday.

But Crews’ hands were no match for a 9 mm bullet. Crews was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead at 12:25 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2008, less than an hour after he was shot after tucking his then-2-year-old daughter into bed.

Tracy Crews, right, with family members. Submitted photo

The fatal shot pierced Crews’ right wrist, grazing the chest area near his clavicle, before it re-entered the left side of his neck and exited from near his ear, said Dr. Daksha Shah, the Mercer County medical examiner who performed Crews’ autopsy.

She was one of three witnesses who took the stand Thursday, the jury’s first day back after myriad delays in trial testimony caused by evidence issues.

Shah testified the bullet “exploded” Crews’ carotid artery, a major vessel that supplies blood to the brain. A V-neck T-shirt Crews had on at the time he was mortally wounded was soaked in blood.

“He lost too much blood,” Shah said. “He bled to death.”

Shah testified she discovered another gunshot wound, on Crews’ left thigh, which exited just below his backside. Jurors were shown a diagram of the autopsy report.

Shah didn’t find bullet fragments in Crews’ body. But spent shell casings from the scene were matched to a 9 mm handgun police found stashed on a nearby garage.

Shah’s findings indicate whoever shot Crews was standing in front of him. But since she didn’t perform a trajectory analysis and was responsible only for the autopsy, she couldn’t testify if the shooter was in close proximity to Crews.

Shah couldn’t definitively say whether Crews was struck by two or three shots.
No one even knows the identity of the shooter.

Nigel Dawson and William Brown are accused of the 2008 murder of Tracy Crews. (Submitted photos)

Was it William Brown, 30, Crews’ close friend, former roommate and the best man at his wedding?

Was it Nigel Joseph Dawson, 31, a co-defendant who was photographed alongside Brown and Crews at the wedding just a month before the murder?

Or was it, as Muncy inmate Maria Cappelli claims, someone Sheena Robinson-Crews conspired with to have her husband killed?

The state has never said one way or another if it believes Brown or Dawson shot Crews.

No fingerprints were found on the gun or shells casings, possibly because the suspect used gloves to avoided leaving any trace.

The only footage the state has produced of who it believes is responsible for Crews’ death was shown to a jury Thursday. It was a fleeting image at best of two “figures” captured by city resident Joe Harrison’s six-camera surveillance system, which was installed at his Swan Street home nearly two months before Crews was murdered. Harrison wanted to deter people from breaking into his Jeep, he said.

Harrison, who has run for city council in the past, testified he woke up after receiving a call from police shortly after midnight on Sept. 13. Police reviewed his surveillance system, hoping it would show the face of Crews’ killer or killers.

But as prosecutor Al Garcia put it in his opening statement, the footage wasn’t a “revelation.” The footage shows two dark figures running down the street. Neither’s face is captured.

One is seen in the foreground, another further away from the camera. The state contends the man closest in the frame is Dawson. Garcia has described him as having a “tall, slim, distinctive profile.”

The two individuals are seen heading down Emory Avenue. They double back shortly after.

The 11-minute film later showed a police cruiser pulling up. But by that time, Crews’ killer was gone.

Garcia has said police were two minutes too late.