CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — With tears streaming down his face, a burly 22-year-old bouncer told jurors Tuesday about the last moments of his cousin's life — while simultaneously giving murder defendant Alexander Pring-Wilson long and angry stares from across the room.

"He just wasn't responding to me," Samuel Rodriguez said about 18-year-old stabbing victim Michael Colono.

"He was struggling for breath," he told jurors. "I put my arms under his arms and lifted him out of the car. I carried him to the sidewalk. I kept asking him to stay with me, to breathe. I kept telling him that it wasn't his time."

Pring-Wilson, who is charged with first-degree murder for stabbing Colono five times with a utility knife, did not appear to avert his eyes as the witness stared him down. The tension in the courtroom was palpable.

Story continues

advertisement

The 26-year-old Harvard grad student faces life in prison if convicted.

He claims he used his knife, a three-inch folding blade, in self-defense after being repeatedly punched and kicked by Colono and Rodriguez.

The street brawl began at about 1:45 a.m. on April 12, 2003, outside a pizza shop the defendant passed while walking home alone after spending the evening drinking and listening to reggae music with friends.

Rodriguez said Pring-Wilson was the one who challenged Colono to a fight after hearing them laughing over the teen's remark about the "sh-- faced dude" who was stumbling down the street.

He said Pring-Wilson opened the backseat driver's-side door where Colono was sitting and that the two appeared to struggle briefly on the street before Rodriguez came to his cousin's aid.

"I hit the left side of his head," Rodriguez said. "It seemed like it had no effect on him."

He told jurors he pulled Pring-Wilson down to the ground by his jacket. After learning from Colono that the defendant had a knife, Rodriguez backed up a step and said, "You want a piece of me?"

Pring-Wilson said, "Yes," but did not move, Rodriguez testified.

He said the two men scrambled back into the car — where Rodriguez's girlfriend, Giselle Abreu, was waiting — and sped off.

They didn't realize then that Colono was quietly bleeding to death in the back seat.

Criminal past

Perhaps in response to the obvious hatred Rodriguez had for Pring-Wilson, a court officer switched his position in the courtroom after lunch Tuesday, and stood behind the witness during the remainder of his testimony.

During cross-examination, defense attorney E. Peter Parker set out to discredit Rodriguez's account of who instigated the fight that night.

"It was you who threw the first punch, isn't that right?" Parker asked.

"No," Rodriguez calmly replied.

Parker also questioned Rodriguez about three assault-and-battery charges he was convicted of before his cousin's stabbing, as well as a conviction for carrying an unlicensed firearm.

Rodriguez appeared tired and spoke quietly as he testified that he had pleaded guilty to each charge.

The defense has argued that Rodriguez and Colono, who at the time was on probation for a drug charge, were the aggressors that night and repeatedly punched and kicked the student before he pulled the knife out of his pocket.

Changing stories

Abreu's recounting of events came under fire when she admitted under cross-examination Tuesday morning that she initially gave false testimony to a grand jury about details surrounding the incident.

Abreu claims that she never got out of the car during the altercation.

Defense attorney Rick Levinson, however, pointed out that Abreu stated, "We got in the car," and used "we" several times when describing the fight to a grand jury in April 2003.

"I didn't mean to say 'we,'" Abreu told jurors Tuesday. "I meant to say 'Sammy and Michael.'"

Levinson also pointed out that although Abreu testified Monday that the two cousins had been drinking beer and brandy in the car, she told the grand jury no one drank anything that night.

Levinson said she also lied about the domestic dispute between her and Rodriguez that brought police to their home earlier that evening.

No one was charged, and the couple maintains it was simply a loud argument. But Abreu initially testified that the couple was late picking up Colono for a night out because she had been napping.

Time difference

Levinson used a marker to draw up a time chart based on Abreu's testimony and instructed her to initial and date it.

Abreu said the couple left Colono's house at about 12:35 a.m. and arrived at the take-out pizzeria, where they ordered a pizza, at about 12:40 a.m. They decided to wait in their car for the pie, which Abreu said would have taken about 15 minutes to be ready, or roughly at 12:55 a.m.

According to Abreu, however, they never got their pie because they drove away after the fight.

But while the state maintains that Pring-Wilson was in the area at about 1:45 a.m., something his cell phone records reportedly corroborate, that leaves almost a one-hour discrepancy that seems to put the witnesses' testimony into question.

The defense may try to assert that they were simply loitering, drinking and looking for trouble when Pring-Wilson walked by.

On redirect, Abreu told assistant state attorney Adrienne Lynch that the times she gave were approximations, and that she could not be sure of the exact timing of the group's movements that evening.

Alexander Pring-Wilson's first-degree murder trial, which is expected to last two to three weeks, is being broadcast live by Court TV.