Jurors began deliberations Wednesday in the murder trial of Joseph H. Campbell, a reputed gang member charged with fatally shooting Naressa Turner last October in St. Paul.
During closing arguments, assistant Ramsey County attorney David Miller presented a timeline of events, boosted by surveillance video photos, in an attempt to rule out the possibility that friends or associates of Campbell's could have been the shooter.
Defense attorney Murad Mohammad raised the possibility that another man shot the 20-year-old woman, a man witnesses described as light-skinned. Campbell is dark-complected.
Authorities believe Turner was killed because her ex-roommate, LeShae Jones, said on Facebook that Turner set up the February 2012 murder of Dominic Neeley, who police say was a member of the East Side Boyz gang. Police identify Campbell, 20, as an East Side Boyz member and believe Turner's murder is connected to the gang's feud with the Selby Siders gang.
Turner had been affiliated with both gangs. "Naressa Turner, like a lot of human beings, had different sides," Miller said, showing a photo of Turner with her daughter. "She was a complex person, but she had dreams ... and she had a family."
Miller presented a timeline depicted in surveillance images taken at a gas station, corner store, private residence's security camera and a traffic camera that provided one of the clearest narratives of many players' whereabouts on Oct. 14. It showed Campbell at a Super USA station wearing a white mask on his head and then on his face 45 minutes before Turner was shot as she sat in an SUV. Witnesses said the shooter wore a mask.
A traffic camera depicted a car belonging to Delandez Williamson at 2:14 p.m. at E. 7th and Arcade Streets. That's about a half-mile from the alley where Turner was shot at least nine times. The first 911 call was made at 2:15 p.m.
Mohammad has tried to raise the possibility that Williamson, Neeley's best friend, was the shooter. No witnesses placed Campbell at the scene at the time of the shooting, Campbell was not friends with Neeley and a witness testified that Williamson's car drove through the alley just before the shooting, he told the jury. Williamson is light-skinned and the same height as the shooter, Mohammad said.
