Oct. 14--Thomas Wortham III kept his composure Wednesday as he told jurors how his son, an off-duty Chicago police officer, lay dying in the street outside his boyhood South Side home in 2010.
But when a prosecutor handed him an envelope and asked him to identify what was inside, Wortham began to cry.
"My son's badge," said the retired police sergeant, his voice breaking.
Wortham's son and namesake, Thomas Wortham IV, had just returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq with the Army when he was gunned down during what prosecutors have described as an attempted armed robbery.
Testifying in a level voice, the elder Wortham, 68, said he had retrieved his mortally wounded son's gun from the street and opened fire at the attackers with that weapon as well as his own revolver.
Brian Floyd was killed, while his cousin, Marcus Floyd, was severely wounded. Two others fled, according to prosecutors. Five years later, testimony began Wednesday at Marcus Floyd's trial at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. He is the third and last defendant to go to trial for Wortham's killing.
Prosecutors have alleged that Wortham, 30, was fatally shot as four men tried to rob him of his new motorcycle in front of his parents' home in the Chatham neighborhood. Wortham drew his gun, identified himself as a cop and exchanged gunfire with the two Floyds, according to prosecutors.
Toyious Taylor, the driver of the getaway car, and Paris McGee, whom the elder Wortham said fired a shot at him before the two fled, have already been convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
A separate Cook County jury decided in August that Floyd was mentally fit to stand trial even though he allegedly can't remember what happened that night. Floyd suffered "retrograde amnesia" when his brain was deprived of oxygen after losing massive amounts of blood, his attorneys contended. He also suffered two heart attacks and spent a week in a coma.
With no available tests to prove or disprove whether Floyd had amnesia, the jury decided Floyd was able to help his attorneys in his defense and understood the criminal charges and the basic elements of courtroom proceedings.
Floyd's lawyers made no mention of his alleged amnesia during opening statements Wednesday.
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
