Trial starts for man accused of fatally shooting teen in downtown North Little Rock

As a Jacksonville man's capital-murder trial began Wednesday, his attorneys attacked police tactics that led their client to admit to the shooting, telling a Pulaski County jury that investigators ignored the man when he was able to tell them about the real killer.

Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Zavier Marquis Pree, 21, over the July 2015 slaying of 18-year-old Aaron Crawford of Little Rock.

Pree is also charged with aggravated robbery, accused of stealing Crawford's car after fatally wounding him in a pre-dawn shooting in downtown North Little Rock.

Proceedings resume at 9:30 a.m. today before Circuit Judge Herb Wright. Jurors will get to witness the police interview techniques for themselves as they resume watching a video of Pree's interrogation.

Police say Pree duped Crawford into giving him a ride from Jacksonville to Little Rock under the pretense that Pree would pay him $300 for driving, money that Pree would get by selling 2 pounds of marijuana during the trip.

Instead, the trip ended behind the U.S. Bank on Riverfront Place with a bloody Crawford, shot four times, including once in the face, staggering through the parking lot and crying for help.

Pree's lawyers told the seven women and five men of the jury that Crawford was killed by another man in the car and that prosecutors can't prove Pree was even in the vehicle when Crawford was killed.

"They're not going to produce evidence of who pulled the trigger," defense attorney Sonia Rios said in her opening statement. "There is evidence someone else was in the car."

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Rios acknowledged that Pree has told police he shot Crawford. But she called on jurors to closely examine the way Pree was questioned by a detective over a five-hour span. She described the interview as stressful and said police deceived Pree about the evidence against him.

"He was interrogated for hours. He was lied to," she said. "When he finally got around to telling them the truth, he was dismissed out of hand."

Key to supporting the defense is that Crawford's "dying declaration" to a bystander who had tried to help him was that "they" had shot him and stolen his car, Rios said.

Deputy prosecutor Grayson Hinojosa told jurors that Crawford's cellphone led investigators to Pree. The first thing police saw when they opened the phone was a Google Map with directions from Pree's street to the U.S. Bank building, he said.

Police immediately followed that mapped path back to Jacksonville where investigators found Crawford's red 2006 Dodge Magnum parked across the street from Pree's home, Hinojosa said. Officers staked out the car and arrested Pree after he got in the car, started it up and began driving.

Once in custody, Pree offered police several versions of how he came to possess Crawford's car and how the victim was killed, Hinojosa said, walking jurors through five different stories Pree told his interrogators.

The sequence began with Pree saying he'd borrowed the car from a friend, shifted to how a "random guy" had killed Crawford, then turned toward self-defense to explain the slaying, the prosecutor told jurors.

Pree's story changed each time police confronted him about discrepancies in his claims, Hinojosa said.

The phone also showed that Crawford and Pree had been strangers until the day of the killing, the prosecutor said. Hinojosa said Pree contacted Crawford through Facebook because Crawford had liked Pree's post about being willing to pay $300 for a trip to Little Rock.

Crawford was "confused, skeptical and reluctant" when Pree contacted him because they didn't know each other, the prosecutor said.

Pree's trial began on Wednesday, but he's already guaranteed prison time regardless of the jury's verdict. He accepted an 11-year sentence last week by pleading guilty to first-degree battery, aggravated robbery, aggravated residential burglary and theft for the crimes he committed as a member of the three-man Taliban Gang.

The trio took on the name because of the way they wrapped their shirts around their faces during five armed robberies over the space of a month in summer 2015, including one in which a man was shot in the back. Pree was the group's getaway driver.

His two co-defendants have already pleaded guilty to federal robbery charges and sentenced in federal court. Travoz Larry Barker, 21, of Little Rock received a 10-year sentence in April while 23-year-old Deonte Dequan Powell of Little Rock was sentenced to 13 years in June.

Metro on 07/27/2017

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