The lawyer for a Homewood man on trial for shooting identical twins living in the same house as him told a jury Wednesday that his client acted in self-defense.
Preslin Turner, 37, is charged with killing Therreus Lindsey, 27, and wounding Darius Lindsey last year following a fistfight among the men in the Mount Vernon Street home.
Defense attorney Aaron Sontz said in his opening statement that his client had just been attacked by the Lindsey brothers and had the right to stand his ground — including shooting them.
“Preslin Turner was acting in self-defense when two adult men … attacked him in his own home when they knew he was armed,” Sontz said as Turner’s trial began in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court. “Pennsylvania is a stand-your-ground state. He had no duty to retreat. You can meet force with force.”
But Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Emma Schoedel said in her opening there was no justification for Turner’s behavior.
The fistfight had ended with the twins getting the better of Turner, Schoedel said, bruising Turner’s ego.
“Punches were thrown, dreadlocks were pulled,” Schoedel said. “That should have been the end of it.”
Instead, she told the jury that Turner walked upstairs and returned a short time later with a gun, shooting both men — in front of their mother.
“It is the defendant, and the defendant alone, who brought a gun to the fistfight,” the prosecutor said.
A mother disrespected
According to investigators, police were called to the home for a reported shooting around 11:30 p.m. on March 7.
When they arrived, they found Darius Lindsey collapsed on the street in front of the house with a bullet wound to his back.
Inside, Therreus Lindsey had already died.
Schoedel told the jury in her opening that the fight started after the Lindsey brothers heard Turner arguing with their mother.
Darius Lindsey, the first prosecution witness, testified that he heard Turner accuse his mother of going into his room, and the man called her an expletive.
Both brothers then went into the hallway outside their bedroom to confront Turner.
“I told him he wouldn’t be disrespecting my mom,” Darius Lindsey said. “He pulled my hair, and we started fighting.”
“Everything escalated from there.”
Darius Lindsey said his brother grabbed Turner’s legs and slammed him to the floor, and then Darius put the man in a chokehold for 15 to 20 seconds.
It was then, the witness continued, that Therreus Lindsey told him to let him go.
“The fight was over after I let him go,” Darius Lindsey said.
During the fight, which lasted less than two minutes, the witness said he never saw a gun on Turner, although he knew he normally carried one.
After the fight ended, Darius Lindsey said Turner went upstairs. A short time later, he returned, and shot Darius Lindsey in the back, the victim testified.
Jurors see a bullet wound
Darius told the jury he ran out of the back door of the house, and as he went, heard two more shots.
That was when Turner killed Therreus Lindsey, who was shot once in the shoulder and again when he was already down on the floor, Schoedel said.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a self-defense case,” she said.
During Darius Lindsey’s testimony, he described the extent of his injuries, noting that the bullet is still in his right shoulder. He cannot open his right hand and is scheduled to have surgery to remove the bullet soon, he said.
Schoedel asked Darius Lindsey to show the jury his scar, which he did over the defense’s objection.
At one point, as Schoedel helped the witness lift his shirt to display the injury, Sontz again objected, asking the court, “Is the witness’ body being entered into evidence?”
Earlier story differs
On cross-examination, Sontz used Darius Lindsey’s testimony at his client’s preliminary hearing to challenge the story he told the jury.
During that proceeding, just a couple of weeks after the shooting, Darius Lindsey testified Turner had the gun on him when the fight started, and Lindsey knew it.
“‘I was initially going to choke him out because I knew he had a gun, and I was afraid it would end up with one of us getting shot,’” Darius Lindsey said at the time.
During his cross, Sontz also repeatedly asked Darius Lindsey if he or his brother swung a frying pan at Turner prior to the fight starting.
The witness denied that and said he couldn’t explain why police found a frying pan behind the front door.
“We didn’t try to hit him with a frying pan.”
The trial, before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Simquita R. Bridges, will resume Thursday morning.