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State Rests Case In Pasco Murder Trial

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By TODD LESKANIC | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 16, 2009

DADE CITY - The state rested its case against Luc Pierre-Charles Jr. today, betting that the testimony of three "snitches" will be enough to convict the 21-year-old of killing teens Derek Pieper and Raymond Veluz.

Anthony Harris and John Blanford were the last of the prosecution witnesses.

Harris has worked as a confidential informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified that he met Pierre-Charles while working as an informant. He said Pierre-Charles told him that he and Tyree Jenkins shot two boys in Trilby.

"He said he unloaded numerous times in the back of one boy's head and Tyree unloaded numerous times in the back of one boy's head," Harris said from the stand.

"Why did he tell you this?" asked Assistant State Attorney Manny Garcia.

"I guess how a lot of people talk," Harris said. "I guess they be wanting a rep in the streets as being a man of the street. That's how it is."

Jenkins, 23, will be tried separately. Both men face a possible death sentence if convicted as charged in the July 28, 2006, shooting deaths of Pieper, 17, and Veluz, 18.

The teens were shot execution-style on a dirt road in Trilby. Prosecutors have said they were killed after they became entangled in a drug war involving Pierre-Charles and two other dealers.

The defense will begin presenting its case Tuesday morning.

Blanford, a cousin to Pierre-Charles, testified that Pierre-Charles told him about the shooting in 2006 while they were in Lakeland. He said Pierre-Charles told him he shot one boy and Jenkins shot the other.

"He said that him and Tyree wanted to bag their first body," Blanford said.

Harris and Blanford joined Donavan Parker as three of the state's most important witnesses.

Parker, 19, testified Friday that Pierre-Charles also told him he killed the boys in Trilby. Harris, Blanford and Parker are felons, a fact seized on by defense attorneys Lane Lastinger and Richard Watts as a reason to distrust their testimony.

Angel Brooks, the former girlfriend of one of Pierre-Charles' friends, also testified today and was the one prosecution witness to put Pierre-Charles, Pieper and Veluz together on the night of the killings.

Brooks said she saw Pierre-Charles and Jenkins leaving the Pasco Woods apartments that night in a dark-colored, four-door car she had not seen before. Pieper and Veluz had driven to the apartments in Veluz's four-door, black Mitsubishi Galant to buy drugs, according to earlier testimony.

Brooks testified that she saw two boys in the car's backseat as Pierre-Charles drove away with Jenkins in the passenger seat. She testified that hours later she overheard a phone call during which Pierre-Charles told someone to get on their knees and pray.

Brooks said she heard the boys begging for their lives, but the call ended before shots were fired.

Lastinger questioned Brooks' credibility, bringing up her numerous previous statements that differed from her court testimony. Most of the discrepancies arose from the phone call Brooks said she overheard.

In previous statements, she said she didn't know who the caller was. In her testimony today, she said the call came in on speaker phone, something she hadn't mentioned in earlier interviews.

Brooks also admitted that she doesn't like Pierre-Charles, which could show that her testimony is biased against him.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (727) 815-1084.

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