Texts, recorded phone calls and two witnesses will prove that a Mays Landing man killed one person and wounded three others in a 2017 shooting, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
But the state has no weapon, no forensics and no strong evidence linking Matthew Gonzalez to the shooting, Gonzalez's attorney countered.
Gonzalez, 29, is accused of opening fire during a fight that started between two other men in the parking lot of the Brandywood Apartment Complex in Hamilton Township on Sept. 24, 2017.
Taufeeq Mitchell, 31, of Atlantic City, was killed. Three others were wounded, including a woman who testified Tuesday that "a tall light-skinned person that I didn't know" came out of the woods with a silver gun and shot Laquine Demby and then Mitchell.
Demby was badly injured.The woman was grazed.While there were 15 to 20 people there, only two were willing to give statements, both sides agreed.Chief Assistant Prosecutor Erik Bergman said it illustrated the fear many have of coming forward.Defense attorney Yvonne Maher said it showed the state's case is thin.
Video surveillance from the complex will show Gonzalez in a pair of multicolored shorts both the woman and another witness said the shooter was wearing, Bergman told the jury in his opening.
Before his arrest in March 2018, Gonzalez -- who normally wore a beard as he currently has -- texted a photo of himself to his girlfriend clean shaven, Bergman said.
Gonzalez told her he knew she would be mad, but "Cops are on me. Gotta look different."
He was arrested in March 2018, after another man apparently gave investigators information about the shooting.
The discovery in the case let Gonzalez know it was Zack Bowen who talked, Bergman said.
"Zack's a rat and needs to be stabbed up," Gonzalez said in a recorded phone call, Bergman told jurors.
When the two wound up in the county jail together, Gonzalez allegedly threatened Bowen, which brought a witness tampering charge.
But defense attorney Maher said Bowen waited months to make that claim, after he was in trouble again.She also noted that Gonzalez actually told his girlfriend to "stay away from Zack."
"That's the opposite of witness tampering," she told the jurors.
Bowen was also never "stabbed up" or hurt in anyway, she said, claiming that those were the words of a man frustrated by someone lying about him.
Bergman acknowledged that Bowen waited to provide investigators with the information about Gonzalez until he got in trouble in December 2017.
But, Bergman said, Bowen still was not keen to turn Gonzalez in, and waited three months to say anything.
"Just because someone gives police information to help himself out doesn't necessarily mean that that information isn't true," Bergman said.
Maher began her opening by showing a clip from "My Cousin Vinny" in which the titular character, an attorney played by Joe Pesci, talks about the illusion of a case the prosecution presents.
"They show you everything in a very special way, so they look like they have everything a brick should have," he tells his client/cousin, while holding up a playing card to show, when viewed from another angle, it's thin.
Maher said she too will have a witness. He will testify that the shooter was a male that appeared to be 16 to 18 years old wearing a red hat and blue jeans."They don't have everything that they say," she added. "It's a house of cards."
The trial will resume Wednesday with the state presenting more witnesses.
