Day two of the second-degree murder trial of two D.C. teenagers wrapped up on Friday.
The girls, ages 13 and 15, are charged in the killing of 64-year-old Reggie Brown.
Police and prosecutors say Brown was attacked by a group of five teenage girls along Georgia avenue in Northwest D.C.
It happened last October and was captured by security camera. The girls were seen kicking, beating and hitting brown with his own belt, according to police.
NBC Washington reporter and WTOP alum Paul Wagner joined WTOP on Friday to talk about the case.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Paul Wagner: We did learn new information today. This was information that has not been previously made public. And, if you’ve been following this case, you may have thought that Reggie Brown may have been lying dead in that alley for some time, but that’s not the case. We learned today that there were two women roommates who lived nearby in an apartment, and they both testified today. They said that they had heard some screaming coming from the street that night, they immediately ran up to the rooftop of their building and looked down and they could see a body in the alley.
They didn’t see anybody else around the body. They called 911, to report it. And then, one of the girls, who said she was trained in first aid, said she wanted to go down and check to see if she could help. And actually both roommates, both girls, then left the apartment, and they went into the alley, and they went right up onto to Reggie, and they could see that he was in very, very bad shape.
But we also heard today that he was drawing his last breath, and the family was sitting in the courtroom today, and heard this for the first time that one of these women, the roommate, testified that she could hear some moaning, and then she heard a cough, and apparently that was Reggie’s last breath. And then they called 911, again, and that’s when the ambulance came and the police came and they found Reggie Brown there in a pool of blood.
Anne Kramer: Talk to us a little bit about what the prosecutor said in opening statements yesterday. She talked about, that the two teenagers that are on trial right now, were looking for a victim. What was she getting at there?
Paul Wagner: Well, the five girls coordinated, prosecutors and police were out on Georgia Avenue that night, walking up and down Georgia Avenue. And again, you gotta remember, this is juvenile court, so we don’t have any access to documents. All we know is what we’re hearing in court and what they’re saying in court. And so there was really nothing else to add to that, other than that’s what the prosecutors say these girls were doing. But what’s really driving the family mad here, and others as well, is that this all began with a man who police call Blue Coat.
He’s a guy that’s not been identified who started it all, and that, according to police, and they have video of this, he grabs Reggie Brown by the collar, he drags him across Georgia Avenue, throws him up against the wall of the Domino’s Pizza, and starts beating him. And that’s when the girls walked up, and then they said, can we help? Can we join in, join in the fight? And that’s where it went from there. So again, I wish I could add more to what she said about that, but you have to kind of read and read between the lines as you’re sitting in court, because, again, there are no documents. There’s no charging document that we can get access to.
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