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Martinsburg man takes stand in his defense against attempted murder charge


Tim Cook MARTINSBURG–A Martinsburg man took the witness stand Wednesday to uphold his innocence of any involvement in a daytime shooting last year in the city.

“My name was brought into (the shooting case) because I own a Chrysler,” said Julian Lee Richardson, 28, during the second day of his trial in Berkeley County Circuit Court. “I never thought (the criminal charges against him) would go this far.”

In addition to an attempted murder charge, Richardson faces 10 counts of wanton endangerment and one count of conspiracy to commit wanton endangerment in connection to the shooting on Sept. 4, 2016.

No witnesses placed Richardson at the shooting scene during his trial this week.

Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Watson put forth a circumstantial case built on police records and statements and two witness accounts to allege that Richardson drove the gunman in his Chrysler 300 to the shooting scene.

“There is no drive-by shooting without the driver,” Watson said during closing arguments.

Saying in court that he was never near or involved in any events related to the shooting, Richardson has pleaded innocent and has been free on a $100,000 bond while awaiting trial.

“You had nothing to do with it?” a prosecutor pressed during Richardson’s courtroom testimony Wednesday.

“You are right–correct,” Richardson responded.

The defense had four people testify, including Richardson.

In initial charging documents and trial testimony, police maintain that a series of events that led to the shooting started to unfold about 2:30 p.m. with a fight and mugging that occurred at Oak Street Park in the city.

Prosecutors and police allege that the shooting occurred in a street near another city park–Martin Luther King Jr. Park–about 3:40 p.m. in retaliation for the initial altercation.

No one was harmed during the shooting. However, police discovered 10 spent 9 mm shell cases at the shooting scene on Ramer Court, after finding a four-door Dodge Ram pickup truck riddled with bullets about two blocks away.

Neither the alleged target of the shooting, Shawn Dobson of Martinsburg, nor the owner of the pickup truck, X’Arvious Mosley of Hagerstown, Maryland, testified at Richardson’s trial this week.

The alleged shooter, Willie “Atlanta” Hudson, 29, of Martinsburg, also did not testify during the trial.

Hudson has been charged as the gunman in the shooting. Police allege Hudson shot at the pickup truck attempting to retaliate for the fight and his mugging in Oak Street Park. Police said Hudson’s wallet was reportedly stolen during the confrontation at the park, and that they found the wallet in the pickup truck Hudson allegedly shot at.

Hudson has been charged with attempted murder and other felony charges. He accepted a plea agreement with prosecutors in October. A plea and sentencing hearing to settle his charges is scheduled for Jan. 5.

Hudson was not required to testify in Richardson’s trial as a condition to his plea agreement with prosecutors.

Richardson and Hudson know each other, as do other people allegedly iconnected to the events surrounding the shooting, according to trial testimonies and statements.

According to a regular work routine he follows six days a week, Richardson said, he was either at work showering after a 12-hour shift or traveling home from work to Martinsburg when the initial incident at Oak Street Park took place. Time records at his work showed he ended his work shift at 2:10 a.m., approximately 20 minutes before police responded to a call about a fight at the Oak Street Park.

“That’s what I do every day–I go to work and go home,” he said of his work routine.

Richardson said he spends an additional 40 minutes to an hour showering after every work shift at Knauf Insulation, an insulation manufacturing plant in Inwood. Employees at the plant are encouraged–but not required–to wear company provided work clothes and use the plant’s showers after workday shifts there, a manager with Knauf testified Wednesday. The work clothes offered to employees stay at the plant, and the showers for employees prevent them from carrying home insulation fibers that might cling to and irritate them or their family members.

Martinsburg City Patrolman Joel Larson, who responded to the 2:30 p.m. initial call of a fight at the Oak Street Park, said he saw a grayish-blue Chrysler 300 sedan–similar to one Richardson owns–pick up Hudson and another man at the park. The car drove the two men away, Larson said, but he didn’t see the driver of the sedan.

Police never recorded the license plate number to definitively identify that Chrysler or any other Chrysler they believe might have been used in the shooting, defense attorney Craig Monford pointed out in court.

A few minutes before the shooting, police allege that three men in a similar Chrysler 300 appeared at the home of Dobson’s former girlfriend. That girlfriend, Jennifer Reynolds, testified Tuesday that those men were Richardson, Hudson and Lafate “Bubba” Odoms of Martinsburg–all men she knows. She testified that Hudson threatened to kill Dobson, and that Hudson afterward showed her a gun inside the car.

However, Odoms, a friend of Richardson who police said got in the Chrysler with Hudson at Oak Street Park, firmly denied those accounts from police stated in charging documents filed shortly after the shooting and in court testimony this week.

Testifying for Richardson’s defense Wednesday, Odoms said he and Hudson walked away from Oak Street Park, and they never drove away in a Chrysler sedan. Odoms also said he never stopped in a car at Reynolds’ home that day.

Testifying in his self defense, Richardson called Reynolds a “drama queen” who could not be believed. “She would probably say anything,” Odoms said of her testimony.

No charges were ever filed against Odoms in connection to the shooting.

After a second day of hearing police and witness testimonies for the prosecution and defense, a jury of two women and 10 men began deliberating a verdict. The jurors privately weighed the case’s evidence and testimony for about two and a half hours before stopping for the evening. They are scheduled to resume this morning.



