CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Appearing genuinely remorseful at times and melodramatic at others, murder defendant Alexander Pring-Wilson took the stand Tuesday morning to explain to jurors why he stabbed an unarmed teen five times in what he claims was self-defense.

"You stabbed him, didn't you?" assistant state attorney Adrienne Lynch asked during cross-examination.

"Unfortunately, I did," Pring-Wilson shot back, his eyes wide and on the verge of tears. "And I feel horrible, okay?"

Pring-Wilson is charged with first-degree murder for the April 12, 2003, death of 18-year-old Michael Colono.

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Prosecutors say he was walking home at about 1:45 a.m. after a night out with friends when he passed the car that Colono, Colono's cousin Samuel Rodriguez, and Rodriguez's girlfriend Giselle Abreu were sitting in.

Pring-Wilson allegedly heard them laughing about his drunken demeanor, so he walked back, challenged Colono to a fight and then stabbed the teen on the street before calling 911 and reporting that he was an innocent bystander.

The defendant, who faces life in prison if convicted, appeared nervous and was effusive in his answers, as if desperate to speak after having watched others testify about him in a trial that is now in its 12^th day.

He was questioned for about two and a half hours and gave a markedly different interpretation of the fatal street fight.

Fighting words

Pring-Wilson told jurors he did not know the trio in the white Chevy sedan was laughing at him.

"I heard them hailing me from the car. I heard them calling out something," he testified, adding that in Cambridge he is routinely asked for directions.

He went up to the driver's-side window, he said, where two men were sitting, and asked, "Excuse me, were you talking to me?"

"How sure are you it was the driver's side?" defense attorney Ann Kaufman asked.

"I'm 100 percent sure. I remember the window was slanting down while I'm looking at it. I have a distinct mental image of that," Pring-Wilson said.

The state contends that Abreu was in the driver's seat, Rodriguez was in the passenger seat, and Colono was in the back seat, and that the defendant physically opened the victim's door and had his four-inch-long Spyderco knife at the ready.

Pring-Wilson said on Tuesday that he never touched the car. A crime scene investigator testified previously that she was unable to find any identifiable fingerprints on the door handles.

At his attorney's instruction, Pring-Wilson stood by the court reporter to reenact the exact moment of confrontation after he approached the vehicle.

"The man in the front seat said, 'Yeah, I'm talking to you, bitch,'" he said. "I was kind of a little off-put, so I said, 'Well, fuck you then.'"

Pring-Wilson claimed when he turned to leave, the two men got out of the car and unleashed a flurry of blows and kicks to his head, with Colono at his front and Rodriguez at his back, until he was on the ground.

"I was thinking, 'What's going to stop these guys?'" he testified. "There's nobody on the street. Are they gonna know to stop before I'm dead? Are they gonna stop when I'm unconscious?"

Pring-Wilson, who had previously suffered concussions while playing rugby in college, said he feared for his life.

"The only thing I can think of is 'Get your knife out,'" he told jurors.

Deadly blade

Colono's autopsy reports showed that he had three stab wounds and two incise wounds to his chest, abdomen and left forearm. A fatal thrust to his right ventricle was the stab that likely killed him, a medical examiner previously testified.

According to the defendant, he flailed away at the victim and felt his knife going through clothes.

The men eventually scrambled toward their car, he said, and he feared they might be going for guns or bats, or to use the car to run him down, so he reached for his cell phone and yelled "911, 911!" in an attempt to scare them away.

When the police arrived, the defendant lied and stated he was an innocent bystander who saw someone else get stabbed and run away on foot. On the stand, he claimed he didn't want to press charges for fear that the trio would find out where he lived, so he decided to file a police report and go home.

"I was scared. It was stupid. I was not thinking too clearly," Pring-Wilson said.

At 3:15 a.m., Michael Colono was pronounced dead by Boston hospital officials.

Pring-Wilson was arrested at about 8:30 a.m. When a detective at the police station informed him of Colono's death, he apologized for lying.

"Why did you say you were sorry?" Kaufman asked.

"I couldn't believe it. It was very shocking and I felt horrible," he said, his chin quivering and his voice breaking.

Playing the part?

At this last emotional response, Lynch approached for cross-examination, opening by reminding the defendant that he "liked to act in plays" during college.

"You say you were on the ground, stabbing and slashing upwards?" Lynch asked. "So, how is it that no one was stabbed in the legs, ankles or groin area?"

"I don't know," Pring-Wilson said.

"How is it that only one person got stabbed five times?" Lynch asked.

"I was just trying to get the person who was hitting me, in front of me, off of me," he said.

"You could have reached in your pocket and dialed 911 just as easily as you could have reached for your knife and stabbed someone five times, isn't that right?" Lynch asked.

"No," Pring-Wilson said.

"You didn't tell the 911 dispatcher, 'Two guys just got out of a car and beat me senseless,' did you?" Lynch asked, her commanding voice booming across the courtroom.

"No, but I really wish I had," the Ivy Leaguer said.

Courtroom showdown

The face-off between Lynch and the defendant was palpably tense.

Pring-Wilson's answers were often defensive but never confrontational. Lynch's passionate tone and rising inflection reached TV-legal-drama heights. Jurors appeared pained; most folded their arms across their chests or placed their hands to their faces, and one bit her nails.

"Mr. Colono died, didn't he? You put him in his place, didn't you, and he died?" Lynch yelled.

"Yes," Pring-Wilson replied, his voice wavering as he lost his composure. "He did, I'm so sor...," he began to hyperventilate on the stand before he could finish his answer.

Lynch softened her tone slightly as the defendant took a few moments to pull himself together.

Pring-Wilson claimed that he couldn't remember many of the details after the fight but sought medical attention while in police custody because he was certain he had suffered a concussion. A CT scan of his head did not detect any injuries, according to the physician who treated him. The same doctor also conceded that many of the defendant's symptoms may have been consistent with a concussion, despite the negative test results.

Pring-Wilson denied prosecutors claims that he deliberately hid the knife when police came to his house the next morning. He said it fell out of his pants when he got dressed and that he left it where it fell — on a sleeping bag, not in a crawl space as the state contends — because he didn't think it was appropriate to bring it to a police station.

Throughout his testimony, Pring-Wilson kept returning to his claim that he had no choice but to reach for his knife to protect himself.

"He kept beating me. I was the one being attacked," he said.

"So you just happened to get a lucky shot into his heart?" Lynch shot back.

"I wouldn't call it 'lucky.' That's the most horrible thing."

"You want this jury to believe that you were in fear for your life?" Lynch later asked. "When they walked back to the car, you really thought they were going to get guns or bats?"

"Honestly," Pring-Wilson replied, "the world didn't make much sense at that point."

Pring-Wilson faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole if convicted of first-degree murder. Attorneys expect to give closing arguments on Wednesday.

Court TV is broadcasting the trial live.