2nd day of Pring-Wilson trial

Today, during the second day of Alexander Pring-Wilson's retrial, prosecution witness Giselle Abreu gave her version of the fatal events of April 12, 2003. Abreu was the girlfriend of Michael Colono's cousin, Samuel Rodriguez. During direct examination, she described how she, Rodriguez, and Colono were waiting in their car for a pizza when she saw Pring-Wilson stumbling down the street, and Colono started to make fun of him. Abreu said that Pring-Wilson asked Colono "Did you say something?" and Colono replied "Yeah. Why, you want to do something about it?" Pring-Wilson replied "Yes" and opened the car door, instigating the fight. She then described how she and Rodriguez realized that Colono had been stabbed, frantically tried to get to a hospital, and eventually ended up calling 911.

Abreu admitted that Colono had been drinking before the altercation and that she lied to police at the hospital, telling them that she was driving by when she saw Colono fighting with Pring-Wilson.

On cross examination, defense attorney Peter Parker got Abreu to admit that she had a physical fight with Rodriguez on April 12, something that she had denied during direct examination. He also asked if she had sniffed cocaine that day, which she flatly denied, and questioned her timeline of the events - she says that she and Rodriguez left an apartment in Lynn at midnight, drove to Colono's house, which was 45 minutes away, and then went to Pizza Ring, which was only a few minutes away from Colono's house. Cell phone records show that Pring-Wilson walked by the car at 1:50 a.m. Were they waiting for the pizza for a whole hour, or were they just driving around looking for trouble? Maybe most importantly, Abreu admitted that she didn't see Pring-Wilson's knife, and Colono didn't shout that Pring-Wilson had a knife, until Rodriguez had pulled him to the ground. This admission makes it seem more likely that Pring-Wilson pulled out the knife because he had been knocked to the ground, and not vice versa.

One funny thing I noticed was that during direct, Abreu and prosecutor Adrienne Lynch used the names Michael and Sammy to refer to Colono and Rodriguez and referred to Pring-Wilson by his last name or merely as "the defendant." Parker's first question on cross was something to the effect of "You were afraid of calling the police because of what Rodriguez and Colono had done to Alex, right?" But after two questions the judge made him stop! There was a brief bench conference, and then Parker resumed questioning, using the names Michael and Sammy. If the defense has to call them by their first names, shouldn't the prosecution have to call the defendant Alex?

Opening statements, as well as the beginning of Abreu's testimony, took place yesterday. Tomorrow Rodriguez is expected to testify. Should be interesting to see how much of his criminal history the defense will be allowed to bring up.