Murder Case Centers On Drinking Buddy’s Tale

They hit Fireside bar, ended up at an East Street strip club — then Anthony witnessed his two friends gunned down in a parking lot.

That’s the story that emerged Wednesday morning on the opening day of Markease Hill’s double murder trial in Connecticut Superior Court on Church Street.

Hill is accused of fatally shooting two men, Ensley Myrick and Joseph Reed, outside the Catwalk strip club (pictured) on June 11, 2008. He faces life in prison without parole. His charges include two counts of murder and one count of capital felony, for the murder of multiple people.

Anthony’s story is an important one: Because a surveillance camera at the crime scene was not functioning, the case will rest on physical evidence and the testimony of a few key witnesses — people who in some cases had been drinking, or were for some other reason hanging around a strip club at 1:30 in the morning.

On Wednesday, one such proved to be an easy target for the defense.

Anthony, a 29-year-old man in jeans and a beige polo shirt, took the stand before Judge Joan Alexander in a cozy fifth-floor courtroom. To his left sat 15 jurors, and right past them, two packed rows of the victim’s family and friends.

In her instructions earlier that day, the judge told jurors not to bury their heads in their notebooks, but to watch the witnesses as they speak to determine if they are credible.

Across the courtroom from Anthony sat Hill. The 35-year-old defendant, who pleaded not guilty to five charges related to the killing, is being held at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield on a $5 million bond. Wednesday he sat at ease, cuffs and ankle chains removed,. He wore a short-sleeved, black dress shirt revealing a tattoo with a woman’s name, Keena. During breaks, Hill flashed a smile as he chatted to a handful of supporters, who were sitting just five or six feet away. His uncle asked what size pants he wears. A woman told him he looks attractive in his new hair cut.

Anthony didn’t spend much time looking in that direction as he recounted what happened on the fatal night in June.

He said he had been out drinking with the two victims, Joey Reed and Ensley Myrick, earlier that night. He knew Reed, who’s from North Haven, through family parties growing up. He knew Myrick, of East Haven, for about 10 years, he said.

Before the state could let its key witness recount the events of that night, state prosecutor Seth Garbarsky had to clear the air. He ran down the witness’s criminal record: convicted of fourth-degree larceny and of using a motor-vehicle without permission in 1998, sixth-degree larceny in 1999, criminal impersonation in 2000. In 2009, he was put on probation on a breach of peace charge for hitting someone with a stool during a bar fight. That bar fight, which took place just a month after the killings, had nothing to do with this case, his attorney said.

The man accused of killing Anthony’s friends has a far worse history. Hill served 16 years in prison in connection to a 1991 barber shop shooting in Fair Haven. He got out of prison on Aug. 15, 2007, less than a year before the killings. After the Catwalk incident, he was jailed for leading cops on a high-speed chase that ended in a crash in Meriden. His criminal history wasn’t mentioned Wednesday. By law, it won’t be, unless Hill takes the stand, at which point his criminal record would be fair game in discussing his credibility as a witness.

A Snake Bite To Start

For now, all eyes were on eyewitness Anthony.

Anthony said the evening of June 10, 2008, started out at the Fireside Bar & Grill on Woodward Avenue, near the border with East Haven. Anthony went there to hang out with one of his best buds, a bar staffer named Andy. It was a Tuesday, around 8 or 9 p.m. The two bumped into Myrick and Reed inside the bar. Anthony drank Bud Lite. The other three drank Heineken.

At one point, all four guys did a shot called a ​“snake bite.” Around 12:30 a.m. on June 11, they made a plan to move on.

“We started talking about strip clubs and whatnot,” Anthony recalled. The club they usually went to in Milford was about to close. ​“We decided to go local” — to East Street, he said.

Anthony jumped in Andy’s car for the two-to-three-minute drive. Along the way, they shared a joint of marijuana, he said. They followed behind Myrick and Reed, who were in Myrick’s black Mercedes Benz. They all pulled into the parking lot next to the Catwalk building at 325 East St., in an industrial stretch dividing Wooster Square from Fair Haven. In the parking lot, Anthony’s buddy finished a drink. Then they went in.

The Catwalk was dead, Anthony recalled. The four guys were the only patrons there. They sat down, ​“enjoyed what was going on,” and ​“threw down a couple of bills.”

The place closed early. Around 1:30, after about half an hour, they left.

Fists Raised

The meat of Anthony’s testimony unfolded after a lunch break Wednesday. His story gave one version of a dispute that unfolded right before the killings — a version that omitted one key element.

According to a different version, Hill killed Myrick and Reed because one of them flung a racial epithet against him. That version unfolds in an arrest warrant affidavit.

“I just capped that motherfucker because he called me a nigger,” Hill told a friend moments after the crime, according to that friend’s testimony, as quoted in the affidavit.

On the stand Wednesday, Anthony said he never heard anyone use a racial epithet in the parking lot. He said he missed the beginning of a brewing dispute because he popped into the bathroom before leaving the club. Anthony’s three buddies went ahead of him to the parking lot, he said.

When he got there two minutes later, his friend Andy was having some sort of verbal confrontation with a black male, he said. (Andy was white.) He didn’t hear what they said. Andy and the man appeared to have worked things out. Anthony and Andy headed toward Andy’s white truck.

“We just wanted to get out of there,” Anthony said.

Anthony said his friends, Myrick and Reed, got into Myrick’s Mercedes. Myrick tried to back up the car. The black male and two black females were standing in the way, Anthony said. Myrick got out once and said something to the effect of, ​“get the fuck out of the way.” He returned to his car and made another attempt to back out. Again, the group didn’t budge. Myrick got out a second time. This time, he raised his fists, Anthony said.

Myrick didn’t say anything at that time, Anthony said. He just raised his fists to indicate he wanted to fight. Reed got out of the car, too.

Within seconds, the black male took out a gun and fired four shots into Myrick’s chest, then once shot into his face, Anthony testified.

At that point in the testimony Wednesday, Myrick’s mom, wearing a pendant of her son around her neck, broke into tears.

Anthony continued.

He said he saw the man pull out a gun; he saw sparks and smoke and shells flying. Anthony ​“hit the ground.” He heard one more shot. From under the car, he saw his friend Joey Reed lying face down on the pavement, ​“bleeding out of his eye.”

Anthony used a laser pointer to show where he was standing, where his friend’s body lay, and where the shooter stood, in photos projected onto a screen. As he spoke, jurors’ heads swung back and forth between the witness and the screen.

Anthony said once he saw his friend on the ground, he ran for his life down the train tracks behind the parking lot.

“I didn’t know if Andy was dead. I figured Joey was,” Anthony said. As he ran, he called Andy, who arranged to pick him up in a warehouse lot. They didn’t look back. They didn’t back, he said, because ​“we were scared for our lives.”

Prosecutor Garbarsky put up photos of the two victims, both with bloodied faces. Anthony identified them as Myrick and Reed. However, Anthony could not ID the shooter when shown a photo lineup after the killings. He said he didn’t get a good look at the shooter’s face because he ​“had his hat low.”

“Did You Lie?”

In his testimony, Anthony left himself open to attack on a few fronts.

First, he admitted that he waited two weeks before he reported the killings to police.

Second, he had been drinking.

Third, he appeared to give conflicting testimony over whether he saw a gun.

After he was done repeating Anthony’s criminal record for the jury, defense attorney Tom Farver jumped on these points.

First, he questioned how someone who’s familiar with the criminal justice system, who knows cops are responsible for solving crimes, would fail to contact police after he knew a crime had been committed. Anthony waited two weeks, then called his attorney, who set up a meeting with detectives in Anthony’s home.

Second, Farver asked Anthony just how much he had to drink that night. Anthony said he drank three to five beers, took one ​“snake bite” shot, and smoked half a joint, over the course of three to four hours. For the last hour leading up to the killings, he didn’t have anything to drink or smoke, he said.

Third: Farver whipped out a written transcript of Anthony’s testimony he gave to police. In the transcript, Anthony tells cops he didn’t see a gun that night — he just saw smoke and sparks and shells flying. Farver said that contradicted the witness’s testimony Wednesday, when he claimed he did in fact see a gun.

“Did you lie to the police?” Farver asked. He loomed over the seated witness, holding the copy of the written transcript.

“Unintentionally, maybe,” Anthony responded.

“I might have been nervous,” he added.

Anthony later offered an explanation for the apparent conflict: He said he didn’t see the full gun, because most of it was hidden by the shooter’s hand; but he did see the front barrel.

In his cross-examination, Farver also tried to set up what appeared to be one line of defense — that two men were threatening to fight the shooter, and had him ​“surrounded.” Anthony rejected that characterization.

“Were Myrick and Reed going to jump the black guy?” Farver asked.

Anthony said he didn’t know. He said they didn’t have any time to approach the shooter, because the bullets flew so quickly.

Farver also mentioned the phrase ​“racial epithet” in a question describing the dispute. Anthony two times rejected the concept that any of his friends said anything ​“nasty.”

No Surveillance Footage

In crafting its case, the state also put together a roster of less complicated witnesses — witnesses like 22-year-veteran cop Marco Francia. State prosecutor Kevin Doyle called Francia to the stand Wednesday morning.

Francia (pictured) was the first responding officer on the night of the shooting. He showed the jury what the scene looks like as you approach on East Street, heading south: First, you see the Catwalk, which is a strip club. Next door there’s a bar called Hell.

“Called what?” interjected the judge.

“A bar called Hell,” said Francia, matter-of-factly.

He said he showed up in the parking lot and found two men lying on the ground near a black Mercedes. The car was running; the passenger window was open. The two men were in ​“dire condition,” Francia testified. One, Myrick, was rushed to a hospital, where he later died. The other, Reed, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Francia said he went inside the Catwalk to ask about their surveillance footage. He was told that a surveillance camera in the parking lot was not working, so no video captured the incident.

Another city cop, Detective Mark Harkins, who does crime scene investigations, was called in to lay out the physical evidence. He said he showed up at the scene around 3 a.m., took photos and gathered evidence.

Police gathered four bullets and five shell casings from the scene. Prosecutor Doyle handed them to Harkins Wednesday in little plastic baggies. Harkins testified that all the casings and bullets came from a .45-caliber handgun. Court adjourned for the day before he could finish.

A mix of police and civilian testimony looms in days to come. Jurors are instructed to weigh both types of testimony the same. To that end, police are asked not to wear their uniforms in court.

The state intends to roll out expert testimony to show that all the bullets — two of which lodged in Reed’s body, two in the nearby building — were fired from the same gun. The state also aims to roll out a witness who’ll testify that he saw Hill carrying a .45-caliber pistol before the crimes, according to court records.

A potential civilian witness showed up to the courtroom Wednesday, before court began, with a small child in tow. She left to speak with the defense lawyer in the hallway.

When she tried to return to court with her daughter during a break, a Department of Corrections agent greeted her with a stern ​“no.” Witnesses are not allowed to sit in on a trial. She was escorted out after waving hello to the defendant.

Court resumes Thursday at 11 a.m.