A jury will resume deliberating today the fate of a 19-year-old Owings Mills man accused of murder in what prosecutors called a gang-related killing in Columbia last year.
Daymar Wimbish, the defendant, is an admitted Bloods gang member; his attorney argued he was merely present at a botched robbery attempt in the early hours of May 17, 2008, that ended in the shooting death of Jason Batts, 23.
"The whole gang theme was a substitute for motive," Wimbish's attorney, Spencer Hecht, said in closing arguments to the jury on Tuesday. "These were neighborhood friends who thought it was cool to be in a gang. They weren't like these older, rougher, Columbia gang members."
Hecht attacked the credibility of the state's two chief witnesses, who were riding with Wimbish and two other gang members that night.
Prosecutors and police said Wimbish did not shoot Batts but was one of three men who tried to rob Elijah Jackson in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Stevens Forest Road in Oakland Mills.
Prosecutors said that the crime resulted from a gang-related attempt to punish Jackson, who was suspected of planning to testify in another case. But as the robbery attempt unfolded, Batts moved suddenly and the gunman fired twice, police said.
"A plan hatched in hell is seldom witnessed by angels," especially at 2:50 a.m., prosecutor Colleen McGuinn said in her closing. "Daymar Wimbish was up to his eyeballs in this conspiracy. He and the shooter are like this," she said, holding up her hands with fingers locked together.
Authorities say Lamont Johnson shot Batts with a sawed-off shotgun as Batts tried to run from the SUV in the apartment parking lot. He still awaits trial.
A third defendant, Ronald McConnell, was acquitted of murder charges in the case last month. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and two other gun charges.
