<!--Rick Pfeiffer--><table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Rick Pfeiffer</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com">rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>
It took Bernadette Bishop two attempts to finger the triggerman in the murder of Deion Wood and she was terrified when she did.
“That’s him, that’s him,” she told Falls Detective Patricia McCune. “But I’m the only witness. I’m afraid they’re gonna kill me.”
Bishop had been sitting on the front porch of a home in the 1900 block of Ferry Avenue in the early morning hours of June 13 when two men approached Wood and gunned him down. Hours later, McCune said Bishop failed to pick out a picture of Darrius “D” Molson from a photo array that had been prepared by police.
“Bernadette was very hysterical (as she viewed the photos of possible suspects),” McCune said during a hearing in Niagara County Court on Tuesday. “Throughout the entire interview she was hyperventilating.”
After looking over the six pictures in the array, Bishop said she could not pick out either of the two suspects in the slaying.
“She said she was too upset and couldn’t focus,” McCune said.
Two days later, Bishop returned to Falls police headquarters and picked Molson’s picture out of a second police photo array.
“She went directly to (Molson’s picture) and said he looked like the man who was at her house with the gun,” McCune testified. “I asked why she thought he was the man and she said, ‘Same pointy head, same nose, same mean look.’ ”
Days after that, detectives arrested Molson in an apartment in the 1000 block of 19th Street. Molson, 26, has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder and a single count of criminal possession of a weapon. He is jailed in lieu of bail of $150,000 cash or $300,000 property.
Police have also charged Phillip “Country” Holloway, 21, in the murder. Holloway remains jailed in Texas, awaiting extradition back to Niagara Falls. Prosecutors had hoped to have him here to be arraigned this week, but told Niagara County Court Judge Matthew J. Murphy III on Tuesday that Holloway is going to be a prosecution witness in a Texas murder trial that starts on Thursday.
“(Texas prosecutors) are going to wait for the completion of (the murder trail) before sending him here,” Assistant District Attorney Claudette Caldwell told the judge.
Holloway is also reportedly facing an unresolved escape charge in Texas.
Holloway has reportedly told investigators that he “was the shooter.” At the same time, he has also claimed that Molson was with him at the murder scene.
Molson has denied being involved. Falls Detective Capt. Ernest Palmer and Detective Pat Stack testified Tuesday that Molson spoke freely with them after his arrest and after making a phone call to his mother.
Palmer placed the call and spoke to Molson’s mother.
“She said, ‘Whatever is best for him is what I want’,” Palmer testified.
Stack recalled that Molson told his mother, “They think I murdered somebody, what should I do?”
Stack said over almost two hours of conversation with Molson, the suspect kept “changing his story” about what had happened.
Murphy will now rule on whether the eyewitness identification of Molson and his statements to police can be used before a jury if his case goes to trial.
