Blacknell Trial
The burly detective turned up the intensity, sometimes yelling in a bass-heavy bellow, cursing frequently. His partner chipped in some grim facts—she reminded the 18-year-old suspect about the prospects of a lifetime behind bars. And it wasn’t just a tough-talk routine. The detectives feigned that they had evidence—DNA, surveillance and witnesses—solid as the iron bars at San Quentin. But none of it had an effect. Joe Blacknell III never wavered in insisting he was innocent. “I’m not worried about it…
The prosecutor let the image linger overhead. The photo’s stark shades revealed a slim teen boy, hat backwards, teeth bared in a sneer. The jury saw in his thin arms an AK-47 assault rifle, right hand on the trigger, left hand braced under the barrel, a long “banana clip” magazine jutting out the bottom. His T-shirt bore a memorial picture of Sean “Shawny Bo” Melson, an alleged gang member who was shot and killed at age 16 in North Richmond…
More than one year after the March 2009 murder of Marcus Russell, the woman who was with him when he was killed identified a suspect. She said the man was in the van from which a fusillade of gunfire was unleashed, killing Russell and wounding her in the leg. Problem is, the man, a well-known alleged south Richmond gang member who goes by the nickname ‘Scooter Doo,’ couldn’t have been in the car that day. He was in jail. “I…
The trauma of at least eight gunshot wounds assured the death of 21-year-old Marcus Russell, a coroner’s examiner testified Tuesday. “It was the totality of all the gunshot wounds put together,” said Dr. Thomas Rogers, forensic pathologist for the Alameda County Coroner’s Office. “A large amount of internal bleeding caused shock” from which Russell never emerged. Detailed testimony and graphic autopsy photos dominated proceedings Tuesday in the trial against Joe Blacknell III, a 21-year-old Richmond resident accused of killing Russell,…
On the night before his death, Marcus Russell’s nerves were uneasy, and a red minivan was lurking curbside a few blocks from his grandmother’s house, his mother testified Monday. But before Faith Russell could see who was driving the red minivan, which she said she saw several times in her neighborhood in the months leading up to her son’s March 2009 death, it sped away. Once, as she drove toward it, the van accelerated up the street, headlights off. A…
In the days before he was shot and killed while driving his grandmother’s Nissan Maxima on I-580, Marcus Russell was nervous about simmering neighborhood tensions and a red minivan that seemed to be following him around Richmond, Russell’s friends and family testified in Contra Costa County Court Thursday. “You know your children,” Faith Russell, Marcus’ mother, said from the witness stand. “And it looked like something was bothering him.” The day of testimony wrapped up the third week of proceedings…
When the red van pulled alongside their driver’s side door, the long barrel of an assault rifle was jutting out the window – but it was quiet. “They waited for a second, for Marcus to look up,” said a young woman seated at the witness stand, wearing a checkered jacket and a pained scowl. “Did Marcus say anything?” asked Deputy District Attorney Derek Butts. “He said ‘oh (expletive),’” she replied. “That’s when the shooting started.” In the most explosive day…
The gun found near Joe Blacknell III during his September 2009 capture was almost certainly the same Smith & Wesson 9 mm that fired more than two dozen rounds at crime scenes in Oakland and Richmond, a firearms and ammunitions identification expert testified Monday. “It’s our conclusion that it is a practical impossibility that any other firearms made the marks,” said John Murdock, a nationally recognized expert in toolmark identification. Blacknell, age 21, is an alleged Richmond gang member accused…
The black-hooded sweatshirt Joe Blacknell III wore on the day he allegedly shot four people and missed two others had minute traces of gunshot residue on it, but not enough to definitively conclude that he fired a gun, a Los Angeles County criminalist testified Wednesday at Contra Costa Superior Court in Martinez. Blacknell is an alleged Richmond gang member accused of committing 22 felonies in 2009, including the murder of rap artist Marcus Russell. Margaret Kaleuaty, an expert in gunshot…