Carlos Hill was clear: He did not want to be on the stand Thursday.
Subpoenaed to testify in the appeal hearing on Tyshaunt Love’s murder conviction, Hill fidgeted in his chair, repeatedly invoked his right against self-incrimination and flatly stated he did not want to be there.
His reluctance appeared to be out of fear of a central figure in the case: La-Qun Williams.
According to court records and testimony, Williams has separately attacked Love and Hill in prison since the appeal hearings started.
Love, 35, is seeking a new trial in the 1996 shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, Iris Fennell Belcher. He’s served five years of a 15- to 30-year state prison sentence since a jury convicted him of third-degree murder in 2005. Lawyers for both sides have until Dec. 3 to present final arguments to Dauphin County Judge Bruce Bratton, who will issue a ruling.
*Love’s attorney, Justin McShane, said Williams is the more likely killer — an argument also presented by Love’s lawyers at his homicide trial.*
Williams, who is serving up to 67 years in prison for beating, raping and slashing the throat of a Harrisburg woman in December 1995, had Belcher’s blood on his Timberland boots, according to testimony at Love’s trial.
There was no blood evidence connecting Love to the murder scene.
In addition to the physical evidence against him, Williams twice confessed in September 2000 to inmates that he killed Belcher, police said. According to police interviews provided to The Patriot-News, Williams made confessions to Hill and to another inmate, Keith Herndon.
Those confessions were never presented to the jury by Love’s attorneys, Dauphin County Chief Public Defender Paul W. Muller and Assistant Public Defender Nathan C. Giunta. Nor did the attorneys call Williams — or any of the inmates he purportedly confessed to — to testify.
Muller reiterated what he said at an August appeal hearing — their testimony wouldn’t have necessarily helped Love’s case. Also, due to their criminal records, their testimony might have been viewed by the jury as questionable.
“[Herndon] is a pathological liar,” Muller said. “It would have been devastating presenting him as a witness. He would have been torn to shreds.”
Hill testified that even if Love’s attorneys had called him to the stand in 2005, he wouldn’t have cooperated.
*Williams also might have had more of a motive to kill Belcher because Williams believed she tipped police off to his whereabouts after the 1995 rape, McShane said.* At the time of Belcher’s death, Williams was on the lam.
A phone message left with Williams’ attorney was not returned.
When he was called to testify in August, Williams invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In their case against Love, prosecutors used 3-year-old grand jury testimony from a woman who didn’t show up at the trial. Guillermina Cruz said she was there when Love beat Belcher and dragged her up the stairs by her hair. Cruz said she saw Love fire toward the floor.
Love, originally from New York City, was painted as a jealous, abusive ex-lover who gave police multiple versions of where he was and what he did that night. During the investigation, the evidence kept pointing to him as the killer, prosecutors said.
Hill said he was in an altercation with Williams on Wednesday morning after he was transported here from Virginia, where he is serving time.
“He came at me, and I beat his …” the towering Hill testified, asking Bratton to excuse his language.
*He blamed the fight on McShane bringing him in to testify.*
*Williams also attacked Love on the day of the August hearing, McShane said.*
Williams sharpened a metal can lid and tried to slash an inmate, court records state.
He was charged with having a weapon or implement for escape, a misdemeanor.
*”[Williams] is doing everything he can to make sure he seems guiltier than hell,” McShane said.*
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