After two weeks of listening to testimony, the jury in the trial of a 24-year-old Jersey City man accused of committing murder and attempted murder four years ago began its deliberations yesterday.
Christopher Gonzalez, also known as “Starz,” was 21 when authorities say he murdered Darryl U. Wilson, 24, of Jersey City, on a Kennedy Boulevard sidewalk near Boyd Avenue in Jersey City on Oct. 16, 2010.
Gonzalez is also accused of attempting to murder Wilson’s friend — Rashad Funches, 27, of Keansburg — before turning his gun on Wilson.
In her closing statement yesterday, defense attorney April Petersen called attention to the intense pressure homicide detectives allegedly placed on several witnesses who were at the scene the night Wilson and Funches were shot.
Earlier in the trial, Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Nicole Ghezzar introduced past statements made by two of those witnesses: Fabian McCall, 22, and Perla Caminero, 21. In those statements, taken by detectives one day after Wilson’s murder, McCall and Caminero said they saw Gonzalez shoot Funches and then Wilson.
On the stand, however, McCall and Caminero recanted those statements, saying homicide detectives pressured them to make up a story about what happened.
Petersen asked the jury to consider how McCall and Caminero felt when detectives threatened to charge them with conspiracy to murder if they didn’t cooperate.
Ghezzar, on the other hand, told the jury that they had given an accurate account of what had actually transpired.