Published: August 29, 2008 01:33 am            

‘No justification’

Prosecutor argues Lee guilty in 2007 ‘ambush killing’; case goes to jury

FAIRMONT — Although he didn’t pull the trigger and he wasn’t at the scene, Donnell D. Lee, 24, is guilty of murder and conspiracy in last year’s “ambush killing” of Derrick D. “Lil D” Osborne, 22, Marion Prosecutor Patrick N. Wilson argues.

In his closing argument Thursday, Wilson said admissions Lee himself made to police during a lengthy investigation as well as other evidence, including testimony by two co-defendants, prove Lee’s guilt.

In successive interrogations over a lengthy period, Lee told police he gave the alleged shooter and his get-away driver a description of what Osborne looked like. Lee also told them what car Osborne would be driving and where Osborne was staying, the prosecutor said.

“He’s just as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger,” Wilson told a jury of seven women and five men.

The jury deliberated for about an hour Thursday afternoon before telling Marion Chief Judge David R. Janes that it wanted to go home by 4:30 p.m. and return today to continue its work.

“Whether or not you believe Derrick Osborne was a good guy or a drug dealer or a punk or somebody who made threats,” to kill his enemies, “there is no justification” for his murder, Wilson argued.

Osborne was gunned down near midnight on Memorial Day 2007, shortly after he got out of a car outside his girlfriend’s apartment on Highland Avenue in Bellview.

He was fatally wounded three times. He collapsed and died in the backyard of a nearby home after “running for his life,” Wilson said.

In his closing, Sherman L. Lambert Sr. argued it was unfair that Lee faces the possibility of life imprisonment on the murder charge while the two co-defendants who testified against him got plea deals for lesser charges.

“They get nothing compared to what he is getting?” Lambert said to the jury.

“Mr. Lee was the one who broke the whole case open. ... Donnell is here because he refused a plea deal,” to plead guilty to crimes he did not commit, Lambert said.

Lafayette Y. “Goldy” Jenkins Jr., 25, of Fairmont, and Stephen H. Podolsky, 24, of Randolph County, agreed to plead guilty earlier this year.

Podolsky, the get-away driver for the shooter, pleaded guilty in early January to one count of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of accessory after the fact to murder. He faces a possible sentence of five years on the conspiracy charge and one year on the accessory charge.

Jenkins, a self-described drug dealer and close friend of Lee, pleaded guilty in May to one count of voluntary manslaughter and one count of conspiracy. Jenkins faces a possible sentence of 15 years on the voluntary manslaughter count and five years on the conspiracy count.

Judge Janes is withholding acceptance of both plea agreements until the resolution of Lee’s trial and that of Lincoln S. Taylor, 24, of Huttonsville. Taylor is the alleged shooter, police have said. His trial is set for Sept. 15.

Podolsky testified Tuesday that Taylor, a friend since the two attended first- or second-grade together, owed Jenkins $2,000 to $2,200 for drugs.

During meetings in early May that Taylor had with Jenkins and Lee to buy drugs for resale in Randolph County, Jenkins and Lee talked increasingly about threats coming from Osborne, Podolsky said. Podolsky said he thought the feud was related to Osborne’s growing drug business in Fairmont.

Lee showed Taylor and him where Osborne was living with an old girlfriend of Lee’s, Podolsky testified. Lee also described Osborne’s looks and told them Osborne was driving the girlfriend’s car, he added.

Jenkins, however, testified Wednesday that Taylor did not owe him money for drugs. Jenkins, who said he started selling drugs when he was 15 in his native Washington, D.C., said the feud grew out of a dispute between Lee and Osborne over their women.

That created the exchange of threats. When Osborne flashed a gun at him, also in May 2007, Jenkins said he told Lee to solve the problem. Jenkins said he supplied the gun used in the murder, but he didn’t do the shooting and he wasn’t at the scene.

Lambert also decried the absence of DNA testing and fingerprint analysis in the state’s case.

The state also failed to produce the gun used in the shooting, he argued.

In his rebuttal to the defense closing, Wilson responded directly to Lambert’s fairness argument.

Lee was offered a plea agreement, the prosecutor said.

“He’s (Lambert) right about why we’re here. He (Lee) sure did refuse the plea deal or we wouldn’t be here today.”

Jenkins and Podolsky accepted responsibility for their role in the murder scheme, Wilson said. Lee hasn’t, he said.

The defense has no evidence that Lee was a so-called “star witness.” Instead, Lee went to his hometown of Martinsburg shortly after the shooting, Wilson said.

But Fairmont police detectives within hours turned up tips involving Lee and Jenkins. They notified Berkeley County police and had Lee picked up on outstanding warrants.

Under state law, Lee does “not have to be involved in every individual” planning meeting or discussion that was held among Jenkins and Taylor and him about getting rid of Osborne, Wilson said.

The defense is isolating statements Lee gave police in interviews over several months and using them out of context, he said. In several key interrogations, Lee had a different defense lawyer sitting in on the questioning, Wilson said.

“Donnell Lee leads Donnell Lee” to the gun used in the murder, he said.

In interviews with police, Lee admitted stealing the weapon in a burglary several months before the murder.

The argument about the absence of DNA tests and fingerprint analysis is groundless since the state is not charging Lee with being the gunman, he said.

As for the differences in the testimony of Jenkins and Podolsky about the motive for the killing, Wilson said the state is not required to prove a motive in a murder case.

“The object of the conspiracy was to kill Derrick Osborne and that’s what happened.”

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

        

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