April 28--Timothy Herring was a "coldblooded" executioner who killed a Chicago police officer and another man to avoid returning to prison, prosecutors told jurors Monday, but Herring's lawyer said her client was wrongly identified as the killer by people hungry for a $20,000 reward.
The long-awaited trial opened in a fifth-floor courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building packed with victims' family members, Chicago police and attorneys.
Officer Michael Flisk, 46, an evidence technician and father of four, was dusting for prints at a garage burglary in the South Chicago neighborhood in November 2010 when he and Stephen "Drew" Peters were shot and killed.
Peters' beloved customized red Mustang GT convertible had been stripped of its stereo and the components dumped in two city garbage bins outside his mother's garage, according to testimony Monday. He told neighbor Will Turner moments before he was killed that he thought the burglar would be back, Turner testified.
Both Flisk and Peters, a former Chicago Housing Authority police officer, were armed, but neither had time to draw his weapon.
Sgt. Rahman Muhammad fought back tears as he described for Cook County jurors how he found Flisk shot in an alley in the 8100 block of South Burnham Avenue.
"I told him to hold on -- help is on the way," said Muhammad, who told jurors Flisk was still breathing when he found him lying near the back of his squad car.
Herring's lawyer, Julie Koehler, an assistant public defender, said her client was an easy target for people who wanted to claim a $20,000 reward or avoid charges of their own. Herring was on parole for a 2007 armed robbery conviction.
"So let me get this straight -- Timothy Herring, a 19-year-old boy, shot and killed two people, one of them an armed Chicago police officer, because he wanted his fingerprints to mysteriously disappear?" she said in her opening statement, telling jurors his fingerprints weren't found anywhere on Peters' car.
Prosecutors alleged that Herring shot both victims in the face when he learned Flisk had found a usable fingerprint. He began pulling the garbage bins up the alley but returned and shot both again when he noticed one of them moving, prosecutors said.
"He goes back with his gun and shoots each man one time in the head, execution-style, coldblooded murder," said Assistant State's Attorney Thomas Mahoney. "The citizens of Chicago lost a hero, lost a good man, lost a police officer."
Herring's fingerprint was found inside one of the garbage bins on a box that held a monitor stolen from Peters' car.
Flisk's widow, Nora, briefly took the witness stand to identify a photo of her husband before returning to her seat near the front of the courtroom gallery, where she was surrounded by family.
Peters' mother, Laura, and Turner, the neighbor, both testified Monday to hearing two initial shots followed by a pause and then two more shots.
"I jumped up and ran to the back window and looked out," Peters' mother testified, saying she saw her son lying in the alley in a pool of blood.
She called 911 after the first two shots. The distraught call, played in court Monday, captured the sound of the final two shots.
"Noooo," Peters cried in the call. "Please send someone now, please."
With no physical evidence beyond the fingerprint and no incriminating statements from Herring, prosecutors will rely heavily on testimony from four women who said the teenage parolee admitted killing two "polices."
The first of those witnesses, Tranay Smith, 27, cried almost her entire testimony. She kept her head down except when she was asked to identify Herring in court.
Smith testified that on the day of the killings, Herring and her teenage cousin had smoked marijuana at her home.
Later in the day, when she picked him up, Herring acted "paranoid" and told Smith to drive, she said. At her house, Herring confided with her and the cousin, she said.
"He said he had shot two people," Smith testified. "He started panicking. He cut off his hair."
Smith testified she saw Herring with a black gun. In earlier statements, she had described the weapon as chrome and said she saw it fall from Herring's waistband. Herring hid the gun in a box of diapers and told Smith a friend would come by later to pick it up, she said. Smith said she later put the weapon into a bag with Herring's braids, jacket and what looked like speaker wires.
The friend, Timothy Willis, retrieved the items that same night. He later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in 2013 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, court records show.
Police never found the gun, hair or jacket.
Herring's attorney attacked Smith's account on cross-examination. Smith acknowledged that she lied at first to police but said her conscience had bothered her.
She insisted prosecutors have not promised her any help with a pending aggravated battery charge that could send her to prison for up to seven years.
sschmadeke@tribune.com
