Jurors tasked with weighing the evidence of first-degree murder and robbery charges against Marlon Williams began deliberating Thursday afternoon after hearing closing arguments from prosecutors and Williams’ defense attorney.
Williams is charged with the 2010 shooting death of Minn Soo Kang. Williams faces charges of first-degree murder while armed, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, attempt to commit robbery while armed and possession of a firearm in a home or business.
Prosecutors say that on the night he was killed, Kang bought two cartons of cigarettes in Virginia and returned to D.C. where he was shot inside his 2010 Cadillac Escalade.
Prosecutors said it was Williams who was responsible for the shooting.
Police found Kang’s body on the sidewalk at the 3500 block of Croffut Place, Southeast, and reported his vehicle as stolen to OnStar. The company locked the ignition, preventing whoever had it from starting the Escalade.
Two miles away at the 5200 block of Ames Street Northeast, a woman looked out her window and saw a suspicious man tinkering with a Cadillac Escalade. She asked him to move the car, but he said it wouldn’t start and he was trying to jump start the vehicle.
When he heard sirens approaching, he shut the hood and threw a white bag into her yard, the woman testified. When police left the area, the man went back to the vehicle. She called 911.
“I think this young man may have stolen a car,” she told the call taker, describing a man that fit William’s description.
By the time police arrived, the man was gone. But Williams’ fingerprints were found on the hood of the Cadillac and inside the vehicle. When police searched Williams’ home, they found a semiautomatic pistol under Williams’ bed that matched the bullets recovered inside the Cadillac.
Williams’ attorney, Russell Hairston, argued holes remained in the case. The government only proved Williams had touched the outside of the car, Hairston said. He said there were other fingerprints that could have been tested that may have identified others.
“Who did the rest belong to?” Hairston said. “I don’t know.”
Wheeler said investigators didn’t test 49 other fingerprints because they thought the evidence against Williams was overwhelming.
Wheeler told the jury: “When you folks came in, you left certain things behind. You didn’t leave your common sense.”
