As trial began Tuesday for five charged with the 2001 torture and murder of police officer Wendell Williams, eyewitness Theresa Coogle recounted horrific details of the crime while five defense attorneys tried to discredit her by pointing to inconsistencies between statements she gave in 2002 and 2012.
Defense attorneys also highlighted a 2001 statement from Williams’ sister, Jaslene Williams, in which she speculated about a possible connection between the killing and police corruption.
Wendell Williams disappeared on June 13, 2001.
Sharima Clercent, 34, of Estate Two Williams; Jose G. Ventura, 43, of Estate Whim; and Maximiliano Velasquez, 40, of Estate Clifton Hill were arrested Feb. 9, 2012, on charges related to Williams’ disappearance. Juan G. Velasquez, 31, surrendered to V.I. police the same day. Jose M. Rivera Jr., 39, was arrested in Georgia and extradited to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
All but Clercent, the only woman in the group, have remained in V.I. Bureau of Corrections custody since 2012. Clercent met bail after the amount was reduced.
The five are being charged with capital murder, under V.I. law, in V.I. Superior Court on St. Croix. They all face up to life in prison without possibility of parole, the maximum penalty under V.I. law.
Many of the gruesome details of Coogle’s account of what happened the night of Williams’ death were laid out by prosecutors when the suspects were first arrested, but Tuesday was the first time Coogle herself testified to the jury and was subject to cross-examination by defense attorneys.
Coogle testified she went to dinner with defendant Maximiliano Velasquez the night of the murder, around June 14, 2001, to celebrate their engagement, and then dropped him off with friends. She said that Velasquez called her later and asked her to pick him up, directing her to come to Grape Tree Bay. Once there, Coogle saw Max Velasquez standing by the side of the road, so she parked and he led her to an abandoned-looking building nearby, she said.
"I walked inside … there was Jose Rivera, Jose Ventura and another person named Michael and another man I did not know," she said. That man "was on his knees, hands tied behind his back. He looked lifeless," she said. She later found out it was Officer Williams "because of the news," she said.
Coogle said that, when she walked in, electrical wire was wrapped around his body. “I did not see who wrapped him,” she said. “He was being electrocuted," she added. "I saw the officer get shot in the hand. I saw him get shot in the mouth."
Assistant Attorney General Kippy Roberson, the sole prosecutor on the case, asked Coogle: "Who was the person who shot him in the hand?"
"Jose Rivera," she said.
"And the person who shot him in the mouth?" Roberson asked.
"Jose Ventura," she said.
"What did you do then?" Roberson asked.
"I went outside and threw up. Max Velasquez followed me outside," Coogle said.
Roberson asked what Velasquez had said and Coogle replied, "To get it together.”
“I eventually went back into the building. I saw the officer’s ankle get cut off," she said.
"By who? Roberson asked.
"By Jose Rivera," Coogle said.
Asked to describe what Rivera allegedly used to cut up Williams, she said, "It wasn’t a hand saw. It was made by John Deere. It was green." She said she did not know if it was electrical or gas powered.
She said that while outside she saw Rivera and Ventura with garbage bags. "I started to clean up," she said.
Roberson asked her why.
"Max told me that I had to do it," she said. "He told me if I ever said anything I would end up just like him … like Wendell Williams," she said.
"Did anyone help?" Roberson asked.
"Yes, Sharima Clercent," she said.
Coogle said she moved to Miami and waited "seven or eight months" before calling law enforcement in May of 2002 and giving a statement. Nothing happened after the first set of police interviews in 2002, and she said she saw Max Velasquez in Miami at a court hearing in 2007 or 2008, when the court terminated her rights as a parent to her child with him. One of the defense attorneys suggested the child was born in Florida roughly one month after the Williams killing.
Roberson had Coogle describe how she correctly identified each of the five defendants from five different photo arrays, each of which had six photos of similar looking individuals.
Five defense attorneys – one for each defendant – questioned Coogle’s account, with several questioning why she did not immediately report the crime and pointing to apparent discrepancies and confusion in her accounts.
Rivera’s attorney Gordon Rhea and Ventura’s attorney Daniel Cevallos both hammered Coogle, saying she had incorrectly identified one of the defendants during pre-trial actions on Monday. "Three times you were asked to point to Jose Rivera," but pointed instead to Jose Ventura, Cevallos said. Cevallos also questioned why Coogle signed and dated one of the photo arrays, putting 2011 instead of 2012.
"I got confused as to which Jose because we had just been talking about Jose Rivera," she said. She put the wrong year on the photo array because the new year had just begun, she said.
Coogle testified she knew Ventura about five or six years and Rivera for two or three years at the time of the murder.
Rhea also questioned Coogle about people she mentioned in her 2002 police interview. "You identified Maximiliano Velasquez and identified him as your ex-husband? And Jose Ventura and Jose Rivera? You also mentioned a Miguel Torres?" Rhea asked.
"I don’t recall," she said.
"And Michael Lopez?" Rhea asked.
"He was an individual who was there, yes," she said.
"Was Lopez ever charged?" Rhea asked.
"No," Coogle said.
Coogle acknowledged that there was also a man named Michael and another named Daniel, both from St. Martin, but said she did not recall a Sandy Rivera mentioned in the 2002 affidavit to Miami police.
Roberson appeared to try to connect the defendants to some sort of gang but was shot down by V.I. Superior Court Senior Sitting Judge Darryl Donohue Sr., who is presiding over the case.
"The individuals, did they have a name for themselves as a group?" asked Roberson. All five of the defense attorneys simultaneously objected, and Donohue directed Coogle not to answer.
Jaslene Williams took the stand before Coogle, testifying to when she first began to worry about her brother and reported him missing.
Clercent’s defense attorney Jomo Meade asked Jaslene Williams what she told the FBI about her brother’s disappearance at the time. She initially said she did not recall and Meade gave her a copy of the FBI’s record of her 2003 statement to them to refresh her memory.
"It says I thought someone at the VIPD was responsible, that he knew a lot of secrets about a lot of police officers being indicted in the near future," she said.
The other defense attorneys also hit on this aspect of her initial report.
"You gave the FBI about four reasons for your belief the VIPD might be involved," Cevallos said. He said Jaslene Williams told the FBI the VIPD did not check on him until she reported him missing, even though he stopped showing up for work, and that when VIPD officers returned her brother’s house key to her and she went in, a large number of VIPD T-shirts, a large CD collection and some jewelry were missing. She said that was correct.
"You also told the FBI that someone had marked him present for five days after he disappeared?" Rhea asked.
"That is what I was told," she said.
The trial, expected to last several weeks, continues Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.
