SAVANNAH, Ga. — A Savannah debutante was shot to death after leaving the Christmas ball because she refused to give her purse to a mugger, a Georgia prosecutor told jurors Thursday.

"'The bitch shouldn't have bucked,'" Chatham County Assistant District Attorney Christy Barker said, quoting the explanation that Michael Thorpe allegedly gave his friends after shooting 19-year-old Jennifer Ross in the back.

Barker told jurors in her opening statement that "bucked" meant that Ross resisted when Thorpe and co-defendant Webster Wilson accosted her and three friends as they wandered Savannah's historic district following a night on the town.

As Ross turned away to run, Thorpe allegedly opened fire on her, Barker said.

"The evidence is going to show you that this was a straight-up robbery — a robbery that ended in murder," Barker said.

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The prosecutor said Thorpe, 26, Wilson, 25, and co-defendant Kevin Huckabee, 21, set out that evening intending to rob someone.

Thorpe is accused of firing on the Mercer University student around 3 a.m. on Dec. 24, 2005, just hours after she was presented to members of the community's elite at the Savannah Christmas Cotillion.

Wilson is accused of pistol-whipping one of Ross' friends before fleeing the scene with Thorpe in a getaway car driven by Huckabee.

All three face life sentences if convicted of malice murder and aggravated assault, regardless of who pulled the trigger.

In a town better known for its southern hospitality, historic buildings and manicured city squares, Ross' death cast a harsh light on Savannah's rising rate of violent crimes.

The fact that three black men were charged in the death of a white girl in an incident that seemed to net more media attention than any other homicide in Savannah that year also polarized racial tensions in the area.

That tension was palpable in a Chatham County courtroom Thursday, as lawyers for the three defendants accused prosecutors of building a case around the young men, based on the testimony of "liars" and "thugs" in an effort to satiate the public's demand for justice.

"Justice is only served if the right person is convicted," said defense attorney Amber Pittman, whose client, Kevin Huckabee, sat scribbling notes on a legal pad.

Pittman also told jurors that a key witness told police that one of the assailants was a white man with blond sideburns and a goatee.

"I guarantee that the evidence will show you that none of these three men had blond sideburns with a goatee," Pittman said as members of Ross' family shook their heads in the audience.

At the heart of the state's case is Thorpe's uncle, Sean Thorpe, who was allegedly part of the plan to commit the robbery.

In exchange for immunity and financial assistance, Sean Thorpe implicated the three defendants in the robbery plot, which he claims he backed out of at the last minute.

Wilson's lawyer, Brian Daly, claimed that with little other evidence to go on, prosecutors built a case around Sean Thorpe's story that he procured the murder weapon and accompanied his nephew to carry out the robberies.

"The state must make the evidence fit the crime as Sean Thorpe explained it to them," Daly said. "The state cannot make this square peg fit this round hole."

Witness identification has emerged as a central issue. Two of the three people who were with Ross that evening admitted they could not identify any of the defendants as their attackers with absolute certainty.

Brett Finley said he recalled seeing a group of people lurking on the fringes of Orleans Square as he and his friends crossed the park, but didn't think anything of it, even as one of them began urinating on a tree.

Then, in a matter of seconds, "a dark-skinned African-American man" lunged at him and hit him across the head with a gun.

"I didn't really see my attacker until he had the gun in my face, and then I was more focused on the gun," Finley testified Thursday.

Finley was unable to pick Wilson out of a photo line-up two months after the incident, but nonetheless identified him as his attacker in court with what he characterized as "75 to 80 percent" accuracy.

"I'm pretty sure it's the man in the middle," Finley said as he pointed to Wilson, who wore an olive blazer, light pink shirt and an orange tie.

With some reluctance, Wilson also bared his teeth at his attorney's request to show a top row containing several gold teeth.

Elizabeth Sprague, Ross' best friend who made her society debut with her that evening, also admitted that she did not notice any distinguishing characteristics on the man she saw hit Finley.

Even so, Sprague was able to pick Wilson out of a photo line-up one month after the incident, which she described as the most traumatizing experience of her life.

After persistent questioning from Wilson's lawyer over the photo line-up, Sprague eventually broke down in tears and admitted that she could not identify Wilson as the attacker with 100 percent certainty.

"This was your best friend," defense attorney Daly said. "You want the people who were arrested to be convicted?"

"No," the witness said, bursting out in sobs. "I want who did it to be arrested."

The panel of seven females and five males will hear from another friend who was with Ross that evening, in a trial that is expected to last two weeks

The trial is being shown live on Court TV Extra.