Published: November 19, 2008 12:32 am      

Murder trial emotions run high

From witnesses close to both victim, defendant

FAIRMONT — Witnesses close to the victim and the accused in the trial of a Randolph County man charged with being the shooter in a drug-related murder conspiracy in Fairmont were overcome by emotion Tuesday.

Testimony from witnesses for the defense in the trial of Lincoln S. Taylor, 24, of Huttonsville and the state is expected to be finished today, Marion Chief Judge David R. Janes told the jury before it went home Tuesday.

Taylor is one of four men charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy in the Memorial Day 2007 slaying of Derrick D. “Lil’ D” Osborne, 22. Two of Taylor’s co-defendants agreed to plead guilty earlier this year to lesser charges, while a third man, Donnell D. “Nels” Lee, 24, was found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy at a trial in August.

Osborne was shot and wounded three times shortly before midnight on May 28, 2007. The shooting occurred on Highland Drive in Bellview.

Paul J. Harris, Taylor’s defense lawyer, called more than a dozen witnesses Tuesday, including the mother of an old girlfriend of Taylor’s. The girlfriend will testify that Taylor was with her at her home in Buckhannon on the night of the murder, Harris has told the jury of eight women and four men.

Harris also called Chandra Ross, Osborne’s girlfriend. He asked her whether, according to some reports, she was outside her apartment when he was shot. Harris also asked her why her keys were found outside and why police found a revolver pistol stuffed between a mattress and box springs when they made an initial search of the apartment.

Ross said Osborne and Lee were “best friends.” She said Jenkins, who testified Monday, didn’t like Osborne, although she said she didn’t know the reason. Lee had moved out unexpectedly, something she blames on Jenkins, she said.

Ross remembers she “was half-asleep ... I heard gunshots.” She went to her kitchen and “got two butcher knives.”

“I stood in front of my son’s bed and waited for cop lights,” she said.

When police knocked on her door, “they asked what I had heard,” she said. “I said guns.”

She denied that when police first asked her if she knew Osborne, she had denied knowing him. Osborne had collapsed and died after running a short distance to a neighbor’s backyard.

She said police then returned and said they had a match between the victim’s cell phone screensaver and a sticker they had found on a car parked near her apartment.

Ross said she told police “her friend” or Osborne, had a cell phone with a screensaver similar to the car sticker.

She admitted she first told police that night that she had dropped the keys outside. She must have dropped them earlier that night when she returned from doing laundry, she said. She heard some noises in the bushes, became scared and went into the apartment, according to an investigative report cited by Harris.

But the next morning, Ross told the jury, she told police she was mistaken. She was in shock and confused just after learning that Osborne had been killed, she said.

“I didn’t know what had happened. I told them I didn’t drop the keys ... ‘D’ had my keys because he was driving my car” that night, she said. He must have dropped them when he was shot, she indicated.

As Harris asked her about those initial moments, including reports that police had threatened her that if she wasn’t telling the truth, she could be charged with a crime, Ross became tearful.

“I am a victim. He (Osborne) was my friend. I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said.

“I have nothing to hide.” She said the gun was Osborne’s and that she had told him several weeks before to “remove it from my house.” She didn’t know it was under the mattress, she said.

She also denied knowing that Osborne was selling drugs.

As Ross continued her testimony, Jerry Osborne, Osborne’s father, let out a loud sob. The elder Osborne, his mother-in-law and another female relative have been watching the trial in the gallery.

Still crying, Jerry Osborne left the courtroom. He returned after a break ordered by Janes. With his composure restored, the elder Osborne continued to listen to the testimony.

Rebecca Sharp, of Mingo, Randolph County, the mother of Taylor’s second girlfriend, testified her daughter and Taylor had dated in eighth grade, but broke up in the winter of freshman year. They also dated when Taylor first went away after graduation to a prep school to prepare to enter West Point, she said.

Since then, they have been “just friends,” she said. They have a deep friendship because both lost their fathers, she said. Taylor’s father died when he was 16. Her daughter also lost her father when she was young, she said.

Sharp started crying as she told the jury about the loss of her first husband and the impact it had on their daughter.

Sharp said her first husband made their daughter a beneficiary of his life insurance. She has used the money to buy a “fixer-upper” house in Buckhannon and to pay for college at West Virginia Wesleyan, Sharp said.

She once asked her daughter and Taylor why they were so secretive about continuing to be friends and to see each other, particularly on holidays like Father’s Day and Memorial Day, days that they sharply feel the loss of their fathers, she said.

They told her that they didn’t think Jessica Smith, Taylor’s girlfriend at the time, would understand the bond and friendship they had.

She said she calls her daughter at least every other day. Around Memorial Day 2007, she said her daughter told her on one phone call that she wasn’t going to be alone that evening. Her daughter indicated that Taylor was going to visit her, she said.

She said she still liked Taylor despite the charges against him. Saying she was shocked when she heard he had been arrested for the shooting, she said he’s “the most polite young man ... he’s always very kind and considerate.”

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