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Five men standing trial in Suni Bell murder
FOX 13's Kylie Jones shares the emotional testimony from the mother of Suni Bell as she recounted the night her daughter was hunted down and killed.
TAMPA, Fla. - Five men charged in the 2021 shooting death of 4-year-old Suni Bell are standing trial in a Tampa courtroom.
On Tuesday, a jury heard opening arguments from the state and five defense attorneys for each of the five suspects.
The backstory:
Prosecutors say the child was riding in the backseat of a car driving down Hillsborough Ave. on Aug. 22, 2021, when three cars pulled up and fired about 40 shots into the vehicle.
Andrew Thompson, James Denson, Jaylin Bedward, Quandarious Hammond, and Zvante Sampson are charged with first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.
The state says Suni and her family were coming back from a celebration of life for a family member who had died, and they were headed to a get-together following the event that night in August 2021. Prosecutors say Suni's uncle, Willy Brown, was driving the car and her mother, Mary Harrison, was in the passenger's seat.
They couldn't find the location of the get-together, so they pulled off into a field to figure out the directions. Prosecutors say Sampson, Bedward, Denson, Thompson and Hammond were among a group that was hanging out at a nearby Chevron gas station, and they started watching the car that Suni's family was in.
The group was seen gathering outside the gas station on surveillance footage.
Eventually, her family decided to head home, because it was getting late.
"At that point in time, these men were arming themselves, they were gathering together, they were pointing, they were getting in cars and they were taking off to hunt them down," Terry said.
Prosecutors say some of the men masked their faces and several grabbed guns, before getting into several cars and following the car that Suni and her family were in. Surveillance footage appears to show the cars following their car and ambushing them with about 40 bullets.
"They don't know who is in that car, or they think they may know who is in that car, but they don't know Willy Brown," Terry said. "They don't know Mary Harrison, and they don't know Suni Bell. Neither of those three have any relationship whatsoever with any of these men."
Suni's mother and uncle survived, but the child later died at the hospital.
Pictured: Suni Bell.
PREVIOUS: Justice for Suni Bell: 5 men arrested in connection with shooting death of 4-year-old Tampa girl
What they're saying:
Prosecutors say the shooting was "clearly a coordinated attack," with surveillance video showing the moments leading to the shooting – which the state plans to show to the jury.
Courtesy: Tampa Police Department.
Brown testified on Tuesday morning, and he described the moment that he heard bullets pierce their car and jumped out and started running. He said he thought he was being shot at and feared for his life.
One of the defense attorneys questioned whether Brown had a gun of his own in their car.
Harrison also took the stand on Tuesday. She was overcome with tears, as she relived the moments her daughter was shot in the backseat of the car. She described jumping from the passenger's seat into the driver's seat to try to escape the gunfire.
"I was just telling her to get down, get down, get down, and she just kept screaming 'Mommy,'" Harrison said.
The other side:
However, during opening arguments, defense attorneys for each of the five men said there's no evidence of criminal intent that directly links any of them to first-degree pre-meditated murder.
"This is a prosecution that lies in the hands of circumstantial evidence," Brian Gonzalez, Zvante Sampson's attorney said.
Gonzalez says Sampson, who was allegedly driving one of the cars that night, didn't discharge a firearm.
"I don't believe you're going to hear an admission to a crime by Zvante Sampson," Gonzalez said. "There's going to be no eyewitness that implicates him directly in any of the offenses for which he's charged. And remember, things that lead you to other things are very, very dangerous."
Denson's attorney said there's no evidence that shows the person responsible for Suni's death.
"There will not be one person that will be able to come into court during this trial and say which handgun or rifle, which firearm, actually struck Suni Bell," Daniel Fischetti, Denson's attorney said.
In the years since the shooting, the Tampa Police Department mistakenly sent at least one of the vehicles involved to a junkyard, destroying evidence. The defense is expected to try and use that to claim the defendants were shot at first, but prosecutors say there's no evidence to corroborate that claim.
"There's going to be no evidence of anyone shooting from this vehicle. My feeling is even if an expert had a chance to examine that vehicle and say 'yes, that's a bullet hole. By God, that's a bullet hole.' I would move to exclude it without any corroborative evidence of when it occurred," Terry said during a recent court hearing.
"That's certainly not going to allow me to tell you that this other car, the one you want me to give an opinion on, is a bullet hole because he says in an affidavit ‘I cannot make that determination by a bullet hole,’" Gonzalez countered.
RELATED: Report on killing of 4-year-old Suni Bell says child cried out for 'mommy' before she died
What's next:
The trial is expected to continue on Wednesday.
The Source: This story was written using information from day one of the trial on Tuesday as well as Hillsborough County court records and previous FOX 13 News reports.
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