Nigel Dawson and William Brown are accused of the 2008 murder of Tracy Crews. (Submitted photos)
William “Paperboy” Brown cared about one thing and one thing only. And it led him to betray his best friend, Tracy Crews, in the worst way, the prosecutor, Al Garcia, said Tuesday, summing up the drama-packed Crews murder trial.
Brown’s nickname, Garcia said during closing arguments, is “Paperboy. Not Tracyboy. Paperboy, because he’s all about the paper. And that’s what they were trying to get when they shot Tracy Crews.”
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A Pennsylvania inmate testified Wednesday that Sheena Robinson-Crews, the widow of a Trenton gang member, confessed setting up her husband’s Sept. 12, 2008 murder.
Maria Cappelli appeared by video conference from state prison in Muncy, Pa., and said she could no longer keep the alleged confession a secret so she reported it to corrections officials about two years after Robinson-Crews reportedly confided in her sometime in 2009 while they were housed at the Bucks County jail. Read more
“Who did this to you? Who did this to you? Who did this to you?”
Sheena Robinson-Crews held her husband close, frantically asking him for the identity of the person who shot him inside the couple’s Whittaker Avenue residence on Sept. 12, 2008.
A dying Tracy Crews spit up a mouthful of blood and mumbled the name of his close friend, Robinson-Crews testified Tuesday.
“Pa-per-boy.” Read more
A judge ruled Monday a jury in the Tracy Crews murder trial can hear evidence of a dying declaration Crews reportedly made moments after he was shot in the neck in September 2008.
The decision paves the way for the state to recall Sheena Robinson-Crews, the victim’s widow, to the witness stand. She testified before the jury last week but was instructed not to discuss her husband’s final words after another judge previously ruled it was inadmissible, based on Robinson-Crews’ evolving recollection of her husband’s dying declaration. Read more
Defense attorneys in the Tracy Crews murder trial are expected to raise a third-party guilt defense, implicating the wife of a Trenton gangster in his September 2008 murder.
The defense is based on expected witness testimony of Pennsylvania inmate Maria Cappelli.
Cappelli, an inmate at Muncy state prison, told a corrections officer Sheena Robinson-Crews, the victim’s widow, admitted setting up her husband’s murder. Read more
Assistant Prosecutor Al Garcia wants a judge to reconsider whether a jury can hear evidence of a dying declaration Trenton gang member Tracy Crews reportedly made moments after he was shot in the neck with a 9 mm luger in September 2008.
While Sheena Robinson-Crews cradled her dying husband in her arms on a city street, she reportedly asked her husband about the identity of the assailant. Read more
While incarcerated in a county jail awaiting trial for murder, Nigel Joseph Dawson admitted firing the fatal shot that killed Tracy Crews during a botched home invasion on Sept. 12, 2008, a confidential jailhouse informant testified Thursday.
Isaiah Franklin, the state’s star witness and one of four jailhouse informants on the witness list, took the stand and told the jury Dawson confessed he was at Crews home to rob the convicted drug dealer of $40,000.
When Crews recognized his voice, Dawson panicked and shot him in the neck, Franklin said. But before Dawson and William Brown allegedly fled the Whittaker Avenue residence, they heard Crews cry out. Read more
There was a moment in court Wednesday when it almost seemed liked Sheena Robinson-Crews, the widow of a Trenton gang member, was on trial. Her testimony was marked by startling admissions and terse denials.
Yes, Robinson-Crews said, she refused to cooperate with the authorities, even misled them, for several hours after her husband, Tracy Crews, was shot in the neck Sept. 12, 2008 inside their Whittaker Avenue residence.
But, no, Robinson-Crews said, she didn’t orchestrate her husband’s murder, despite suspicions from some of Crews’ family members that she was somehow involved and an implication from the defense that she tampered with a police investigation by deleting messages off one of her husband’s phones. Read more
Sheena Robinson-Crews was eight months pregnant and pressed with a perilous decision on Sept. 12, 2008.
Her husband, Tracy Crews, had just been shot in the neck inside the couple’s Whittaker Avenue home shortly after he had tucked their 2-year-old daughter into bed.
Crews lay dying in his wife’s arms on a city street near a package liquor store while an ambulance screamed to the scene to take him to Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton. Read more
In the end, James Storey’s lengthy testimony Monday in the Tracy Crews murder trial could have been boiled down to a single nugget for the jury.
Shell casings found inside Crews’ city residence in September 2008 were ballistically matched to a 9 mm luger that was found stashed on a nearby garage. Storey, a former state police lieutenant and the detective who conducted ballistics tests on the shell casings in 2009, talked extensively about striation patterns and used a lot of other fancy terminology before supplying his succinct expert opinion.
The two spent shell casings found inside Crews’ home were “in fact, discharged from within the firearm” that was found near the murder scene. At times, Storey’s testimony was tedious, laborious and hard to follow. It was also interrupted when fire alarms sounded inside the county courthouse, prompting a short evacuation. Read more
