A L.I. murder trial just ended with a historic jury verdict. So ... Who killed Q?

Bad news for Nassau DA Donnelly: She just lost another trial. I hate when that happens.

Most cases don't go to trial here. Going to trial is a big deal. Add to that the charge -- Murder's on the table.

But miracles do happen and they happened here. A MAGA Nassau County jury acquitted the black L.I. teenage defendant of Murder.

The 18B lawyer who won this case: William Kephart, the best defense lawyer this side of the BQE. Show me when THIS ever happened before -- a NOT GUILTY verdict after a murder trial with a witness!

Tje victim: 26-year-old gun dealer in the Bloods street gang who apparently was running a thriving business. (Crime pays, in case you don't know.)

Unfortunately, the police arrested the wrong perp. Again.

The accused teenager -- street name "Shocka" -- is a nobody. He lives with his Section 8 family in a house in Oceanside. There was no evidence this black juvenile was even in New Cassel when this premeditated murder went down.

But history repeats, and history has always found murder defendants who were ID'd in court in front of the jury 100% GUILTY. This was the first time a prosecutor here lost a murder trial after a witness testified.

Even the DA was afraid they'd lose. So the press wasn't invited to cover it.

Like my daughter once told me: "Mommy, I'm finding out most people aren't very good at what they do."

Correct. And now the real killer is still out there, free.

Victim Quaraan "Q" Williams, 26, was shot in cold blood seconds after he got out of his car, a blue Mitsubishi with a Pennsylvania (?) license plate. He'd just parked outside a house on State Street in New Cassel, the evening of May 7, 2023. Someone else was in the car with Q; after he parked, his passenger jumped out of the car, slammed the door and ran quickly into the house. He was inside the house before shots were fired. Hmmm.

A week later, mourners packed his funeral. Q's girlfriend sobbed loudly next to his casket, inconsolable. Love is ...

But somebody wanted him dead.

Turns out Mr. Q had a violent criminal history. Nine years ago, when he was 18, he got famous overnight for a widely publicized arrest after he and his bffs were charged with the vicious armed robbery of a taxi driver.

Word on the street is that Q commuted back and forth to GA. He picked up guns down there, drove up in his Mitsubishi and sold the guns here -- this was a lucrative business. Q had just returned from a trip to GA. His trunk was probably loaded, so to speak, with merchandise.

They threw a massive funeral for this young man. At the funeral, hundreds of people queued up to pay their respects. Toward the end, Q's angry, grief-struck family began to fight, then started to blame each other. As they passed the open casket, Q's stepfather and his father got into it and one shoved the other out the window.

Panic. Screaming. A stampede to the exit -- people worried about gunshots being fired. Glass shards flew; blood spattered everywhere.

So of course the police were called.

Apparently no one was arrested. These people don't to tell police who did what where why when or how, as a matter of routione.

But Williams's angry friends and family demanded justice. Later, in the climax to this family feud, Q's mother cremated her son's body.

Nassau cops rushed to find the killer. "They needed someone to blame," someone said.

10 days later they arrested the 15-year-old black kid who can't read.

At trial, homicide investigators testified they seized thousands of hours of surveillance, picked up at houses and businesses all over New Cassel, desperate for clues. When a tip finally came in, police rushed to the home of a special needs kid who can't read, in Oceanside 20 miles away, and arrested him for murder.

I knew he was innocent. He called me that afternoon. He was afraid. He asked me to pick him up. I said no. "Please?" he said, begging me twice to drop everything and take him somewhere.

But this was a 15-year-old kid I take to Burger King. I drop him off at friends' houses. I pick him up when he gets arrested (he and his friend took a delivery guy's car for a joy ride; the keys were in the ignition, the car was running, the door was't locked, this was a gift from God). I thought: What could be wrong? How bad could it be? "No," I said.

A few hours later, Quaraan Williams was dead.

[Let's just say: No one deserves that. There's a whole new theory in social science about the legitimate culture evolved among slavery descendants, marginalized for generations, with its own language/neighborhoods/moral code, studied by a Harvard PhD. This murder was our fault.]

So.

The 9-1-1 calls began. One was a woman who lives in a 1st floor apartment at the end of State Street. A bullet was shot through her window. Nassau County Homicide Police recovered the bullet in her dresser drawer.

At trial, a forensics expert testified that was one of the 4 bullets fired at Q.

Another 9-1-1 call came in. She lived on State Street. She said a man "stumbled" and "fell" in front of her house. Her call was played for the jury.

Later, medics testified about cuts on the victim's face. Williams landed face down on pavement after he was shot.

So why did an EMT testify that Williams was lying face up?

Homicide detectives testified that when he was shot, he was behind his car. A bullet went inside the back of the car. The trunk was open.

Another bullet hit the inside of the driver's door. Driver's door was open.

That's how we know where Q was standing when he was shot. Behind his car. The trunk and the driver's door were open.

Then the Medical Examiner testified. The bullet that hit Q entered his left shoulder, exited, entered the “thoracic cavity” -- the victim's chest – through his lung to his heart and stopped at his "5th rib". He died "instantly".

Let's read that again: Quaraan Williams died "instantly." Not 5 seconds later. Not on the sidewalk. Not in front of the house. He didn't STUMBLE anywhere.

That's a medical fact.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

But most people are not very good at what they do.

They didn't find him in the street. All the doors were shut. Police testified to that.

What's the big deal? Somebody moved him. So what?

OK.

They had to arrest someone. Murder is violent and public.

After poring over what they said were 3000 hours of neighborhood videos (but they didn't watch most of those videos -- they didn't have to), they found 2 teenage boys who live a few blocks from the crime scene. One, street name "KD", would become the DA's star witness.

The funny thing is, at trial, KD didn't seem to know anyone except the teenager on trial. He knows him from a BOCES class. He said the man who hands him a gun in the video is the defendant. No one has ever lost a murder trial where a witness ID'd the defendant.

Did I mention immunity? This KD had immunity.

Prosecutor asked KD about to describe his criminal juvenile record. KD said he was "stopped" by police for driving a "4-wheeler". He also got "stopped" for possessing a BB gun, he said.

Short and sweet. KD identified the defendant: He dunnit.

But then it was defense lawyer William Kephart's turn. Kephart chopped him up like a 5-star Michelin chef.

“The Glock that was loaded with BB’s, police arrested you for that?”

“Yeah,” KD mumbled.

“Also, you were stopped on Feb. 9, 2022, with your friend Elijah on Broadway under suspicion of looking into cars?”

KD sat. And sat. Finally he said, “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t know, or you don’t recall?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Weren’t you wearing black sweatpants, a hood and a mask?” asked Kephart.

“I’m pretty sure I was wearing gray sweatpants,” KD replied.

Oh.

Kephart proceeded to shred his ID of the defendant but nobody else. Who picked up the gun? Whose car is that in the driveway? Who else is at your house?

On and on, the teenager mumbled: “I don’t know.” “I don’t remember.” “Umm, I’m not sure.” Or nothing at all.

Then Kephart played another clip. KD is in it.

"What's that in your hand?" Kephart asked.

“Umm,” KD replied after a long pause, “I’m not sure.”

“Did you use the bucket of water to clean fingerprints off the gun?” asked Kephart.

“I’m not sure,” KD said after pausing again.

Later, deliberating, the jury would ask for that testimony read back.

KD knew the 15-year-old Oceanside defendant from school. Kephart wanted the jury to hear the whole truth.

“He’s beaten you up a few times, right? You don’t really care for him at all, right?”

“Mmm, yeah,” the teenage witness replied, squirming.

Kephart played another clip. Gunshots rang out across the courtroom. He asked more questions.

“4 shots just sounded, correct?” asked the lawyer.

He waited. And waited. Finally, KD said, “I’m not sure.”

“You were outside, right? You didn’t hear the shots?”

KD said "music" in the background was "too loud".

The video continued. Along comes a man on a scooter, dressed in black, face covered. The man hands a gun to KD. Together, KD and his bff walk to the back of the house, to a shed, and KD tells the jury he buried the gun there.

Three days later, in another video, a man comes for the gun. KD testified that he doesn't know the man. But in the video, he goes behind the house, digs up the gun, and hands it to the man he can’t or won’t identify.

With immunity.

There were supposed to be TWO (2) eyewitnesses in this trial: KD and his best friend Eli. But a week before the trial, there was a rumor about Eli's grandparents, who live in the same house. They died suddenly. Together. On the same day.

The rumor is un-confirmed. What is confirmed: Eli was a no-show at trial. Police testified instead that they searched for him. He could not be found.

Four loud, clear shots echo a few blocks away on those time-stamped surveillance videos where police saw KD and Eli together, outside their houses. What time was it?

What time did that lady on State Street call 9-1-1?

Did anybody look?

Other witnesses who never talked to police said Q had flashed a thick wad of cash – either $20,000 or $40,000 – earlier that day. What happened to that money?

Rumor was that Q had a loaded gun -- for protection. The police inventory of his Mitsubishi and his dead body lists no guns, no cash. Did the killers rifle through his car, scooping up the guns he brought from Georgia before they slammed all the doors shut? Did Q think he was there to sell a gun to someone on State Street?

Who else wasn't called to testify? The lady who called 9-1-1 -- who said Q stumbled down the street and landed in front of her house. She wasn't on the witness list either. Did the real killers move Quaraan Williams? Did they wait to make sure he was good and dead? How long did that take?

Police testified they closed their investigation after they arrested the 15-year-old. The DA's case turned on whether their immunized witnesses told them the truth. They had what they wanted. A suspect.

It took the jury 2 days to reach a verdict. The foreperson read it at 12:25 p.m. Thursday. On the sole count of Murder in the 2nd degree: "Not Guilty."

Now 17, the teenage boy, locked up for 18 months, was released immediately. Twenty pounds thinner after a year of jail food, he walked, calm and smiling, to the rear of the courtroom and hugged his sobbing mother in the back row. Together, they were escorted by three Corrections Officers, past the glares of the victim's family, to the courthouse exit, down the steps, into the sunshine.

As they strolled away headed to the parking lot, a group of people was standing on the courthouse steps, watching. A woman yelled.

“Murderer!”

They didn’t hear her.