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Four witnesses testify Woman recalls conversation with Lewis about knives
Posted: Wednesday May 24, 2000 03:22 PM
By Nick Charles, CNNSI.com ATLANTA -- After long and graphic opening statements from both sides, the prosecution Tuesday began calling witnesses. The state immediately tried to link Ray Lewis and one of the co-defendants, Joseph Sweeting, to the purchase of three knives less than 36 hours before the stabbing deaths in which both are accused. Former Sports Authority employee Luviana Ramirez was called to the stand and asked about a conversation she apparently had with Lewis while he was in the store purchasing the knives the day before the murder.
"I talked to him," Ramirez said. "I was just making conversation, and I asked him, 'Who are you going to kill with this knife?' And he said, 'Is that they only thing you can do with a knife?' I said, 'Well I know you are not going to cut tomatoes with it.' So he got a little bit upset he said I was crazy and this and that. And then I just asked him, because they were already leaving, I said, 'How come you guys are leaving so fast?' And he said, 'Well there's nothing else to do here.' And they left." The prosecution then called Melissa Keeler, a resident of the East Paces Ferry Apartments, the building in front of which the crimes occurred. She testified to witnessing a brawl outside her window in which two men were viciously attacked and beaten by a group of men she described as athletic in build. "Within seconds he was down on the ground," Keeler said. "They were jumping on him. He was being kicked and punched and I remember that somebody lifted his head up and it just fell to the ground. And then someone else lifted his leg up and it just fell to the ground. His body was lifeless in a short period of time." Bruce Harvey, Reginald Oakley's attorney, asked Keeler if she could identify the defendants by any means other than a red leather jacket that one of them wore on the night of the murder, but she said she could not identify them. Keeler also said that she could not identify the defendants even after being shown photographs of them by the District Attorney's office. "I can't recognize anyone that was there facially," Keeler said. All four people who took the stand were prosecution witnesses, however one defense attorney, when asked to assess Tuesday's proceedings told me, "Two men are still dead, but all in all it was a good day for the defense." Wednesday's key prosecution witness could be Ray Lewis' limo driver, who is expected to testify that he heard co-defendants Joseph Sweeting and Reginald Oakley say, "I stabbed mine" in reference to the two victims.
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