Prosecutor Says Insulting Comment Caused Defendant to Murder Victim

A prosecutor told jurors today that a then-19-year-old man fatally shot an 18-year-old man in West Oakland three years ago because the younger man had made an insulting comment about his hairstyle. In his opening statement for Donnell McGilberry’s murder trial in Alameda County Superior Court, prosecutor Patrick Moriarty said that Coty Luster, the victim in the shooting in the 1100 block of 34th Street shortly after 8:30 p.m. on April 26, 2012, was known for uttering words that “irritated people” and that trait cost him his life.

Moriarty said McGilberry, who’s now 22, didn’t like it when Luster “called him a bitch” after McGilberry fashioned his hair into a red Mohawk. The prosecutor said McGilberry then told his girlfriend that he would have Luster killed, which he said “was kind of a harsh response” to Luster’s remark.

McGilberry confronted Luster on the night of April 26, 2012, and killed him by shooting him five times, including three times in his groin area, Moriarty said. The prosecutor said surveillance from a convenience store near the scene of the fatal shooting indicates that the confrontation took only about two and a half minutes, as it shows McGilberry walking past the store shortly before and shortly after the shooting. Moriarty told jurors that he thinks the surveillance footage is significant because it shows that McGilberry was wearing a baseball hat before the shooting but wasn’t wearing a hat afterward.

Police found the hat at the shooting scene and DNA that was recovered from it matches McGilberry, Moriarty said. Investigators suspected that McGilberry was the person who fatally shot Luster but didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him until McGilberry used the same gun to try to rob a man who was sitting in a car that was parked outside an apartment complex in the 2000 block of East 23rd Street in East Oakland at about 7:20 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2012, eight months later, Moriarty said.

The prosecutor alleged that McGilberry an accomplice tried to rob a man who was sitting in a car waiting for a friend but he said they chose the wrong victim because the man had just gotten out of the Army and fought back. The victim managed to get the gun away from McGilberry and yell for help to a friend who lived at the apartment complex.

After the friend came outside with a gun and fired two warning shots into the air, the second suspect fled but McGilberry slipped and fell and couldn’t get away, according to Moriarty. McGilberry made a second attempt to flee a few moments later but police officers who were in the area and heard the gunshots arrested him, Moriarty said. Police recovered McGilberry’s gun and ballistics tests showed that it was the same gun that was used to kill Luster, Moriarty said.

“That’s how we prove it’s him,” the prosecutor said. In addition, two witnesses to the fatal shooting will testify during McGilberry’s trial, Moriarty said. When police interviewed McGilberry about the fatal shooting of Luster, he said he wasn’t involved, said it wasn’t his hat that was found at the scene and said he didn’t have any problems with Luster, Moriarty said. McGilberry’s lawyer, Joann Kingston, will present her opening statement later in his trial.

By Bay City News

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