The trial for Delonte Wynn finally boiled down to closing statements on Wednesday afternoon.

Only one witness was called for the defense before the end of the trial. Wynn is charged with the murder of Darlene Bryant.

Kaleb Berhane works for Wynn’s attorney in the Superior Court, where he is a primary defense investigator. His job was crucial to the defense since he was the one to get statements from key witnesses. One of the most controversial testimonies in this case was that of Donnell Howard, who has been accused of changing his story in order to shorten his current sentence and receive a reward of $25,000. Howard claimed on the stand that if any parts of his earlier testimonies didn’t match up it was because Berhane rushed him. During his testimony, however, Berhane claimed that he never rushed Howard and gave him the option to leave at any point throughout the interview.

Berhane was the only witness called by the defense, leaving the jury without any statement from the suspect, Wynn. Wynn remained silent in his seat throughout the entirety of the trial other than to introduce himself every morning to the judge and the jury.

The prosecution gave a closing statement, going through every single testimony and piece of evidence that had been brought to the courtroom. Their interpretation of the evidence claims that Bryant’s murder was pre-meditated. They referred to text threads and phone calls between Wynn, his girlfriend, and Bryant. Although Wynn’s girlfriend claims that Wynn was calm in the moments leading up to Bryant’s death, the prosecution argues the opposite. The video footage from the Geraldine Apartments catches an assumed-to-be Wynn walking towards the complex and then running away from it moments later. The DNA samples from the crime scene, while not matching Wynn, do not entirely suggest his absence since he did not have to touch her to stab her, the prosecution said. As for Howard’s testimony, the prosecution used evidence from the scene of the crime to corroborate his story — $4 and a lemonade bottle, which Howard claims to have bought for her moments before she was killed. Additionally, the prosecution emphasized the agreements made with both Howard and Charles King to reassure the jury that the two witnesses would not lie on the stand since they have to tell the truth to receive any benefits. The prosecution ended their statement by begging the jury to look at the evidence, to use “common sense” and to put Wynn in prison.

The defense, on the other hand, did not go through the evidence piece by piece. The testimonies given by Howard and King were the focal point of this closing statement, claiming that without these two “stories,” there is no evidence to convict Wynn — no DNA and no motive. As before, Wynn’s attorneys targeted the motives of Howard and King, trying to strip away legitimacy of each testimony. Howard claimed to have overheard an angry phone call conversation between Wynn and Bryant. The defense drew from this testimony, finding that the phone records show no phone call between the two. The defense emphasized the inconsistencies and begged the jury to keep an innocent man out of jail.

During these closing statements, different reactions came from the audience. The prosecution put a scowl on Wynn’s mother’s face. The defense left the mother of Darlene Bryant frustrated. When approached, Dolores Bryant said “I just want to leave this all behind when it’s over.”

As the trial for Delonte Wynn continued Tuesday, the courtroom’s seats filled to the brim with family and spectators.

Attorneys began Tuesday morning, arguing over the legitimacy of witness Chester Taplette’s testimony. After deciding that everything was admissible in court, Judge Bush assured the defense that if the prosecution used Taplette’s words in their closing statement the issue could be reconsidered.

A main focus of the prosecution’s argument has revolved around a text thread between Wynn, his child’s mother, and Bryant. An expert witness helped to identify messages from Bryant that may have been purposefully deleted by Wynn, but the defense argues Wynn deleted messages on a regular basis from many people.

Charles King has been brought up on numerous occasions in previous testimonies, but his role as a witness has been unknown to the jury until Tuesday when he took the stand. On May 13, the witness passed Wynn as he walked in ahead of him on the sidewalk, heading for the Geraldine Apartments. From his view, King said it was difficult to see if a mask covered Wynn’s face. Shortly after following Wynn into the apartment building and parting ways, though, did the witness see an assumed-to-be Wynn walking back down the stairs. King claims that he knew it was Wynn because his clothes were the same as before, with the exception of a new accessory – the mask.

King sat in shackles and an orange jumpsuit as he spoke to the jury. The defense accused King of saying whatever needed to be said to convict Wynn and receive a shorter sentence since he had previously been caught on record lying in court. King denied all allegations of corroborating the same story with Howard, and of receiving a bribe. In the end, the prosecution went so far as to review the agreement that had been made, to reassure the jury of King’s story.

The final witness called by the prosecution was Travis Barton, the homicide detective in charge of the case. When he arrived at the scene of the crime on May 13, Barton testified he saw none of the witnesses mentioned other than the suspect, who was spotted in the parking lot behind the Geraldine Apartments. Since the day of Bryant’s death, he has personally talked to all witnesses, and all of those able to identified Wynn from a photo line-up.

On Tuesday morning the defense expressed concern that the jurors may not be able to focus due to the heat, questioning their ability to come to a fully-informed verdict. Wynn’s trial will resume Wednesday morning.

Testimony by Special Agent Michael Easter started the trial Thursday for Delonte Wynn. In an attempt to make sense of it all, jurors asked if they could ask their own questions of the witnesses, and were ultimately denied.

Agent Easter specializes in tracking cell phone calls and text messages, using cell towers to determine the location of the caller. Easter provided the location of the victim, Darlene Bryant, Wynn and Wynn’s girlfriend throughout the many phone calls to one another on the days leading up to May 13. Based on the witness’ testimony, Wynn can be tracked having made his way back to Wheeler Road around the time witness’ claim Bryant was attacked. The cell phone records also indicated that the morning another witness Donnell Howard allegedly heard a conversation between Bryant and Wynn, there was, in fact, no record of them speaking.

Gilbert Allen approached the witness stand, and when he began to speak sentences became difficult to form. “Is this hard for you to talk about?” the prosecution asked, to which Allen responded, “yes… today, it is.” On the evening of May 13, Allen heard a loud knock on his door and opened it to find Bryant covered in blood and unable to communicate what had happened to her. Attorneys played the 911 call that Allen made to help his memory, in which Allen is heard saying “Darlene, Darlene… she’s passing out… she’s gone.” When asked, the witness claimed he did not know who had attacked Bryant or what had happened to her.

On this same day, a witness who lived in the Geraldine Apartments on Wheeler Road claimed to have seen Bryant just hours before her death when she asked to use the resident’s bathroom. “It’s hard being a woman, homeless, squatting in the streets,” the witness said when asked why she let Bryant into her apartment that day. From the time Bryant used the witness’s bathroom to the time the witness was speaking to the police about the victim’s death, she claims to have been listening to music and heard nothing in her hallways that sounded like an attack.

While used to support different arguments, DNA testing was referenced in both the prosecution and defense opening statements on Tuesday. An expert witness of forensic sciences was able to testify that the DNA collected from under Bryant’s fingernails “excluded” Wynn, meaning his DNA has not found on the victim. The defense made sure to confirm whether or not this ruled him out completely as the alleged attacker, to which the witness said no and that DNA testing can never be certain.

During another officer’s testimony a series of physical evidence, including pairs of pants, sweatshirts, and identification found on the floor of Wynn’s apartment was introduced.

A final witness was called to the stand. Chester Taplette knew Bryant from the many times she had bought cigarettes from him, as well as the time she stole his phone. When the prosecution learned that Taplette had become angry and possibly physical with the victim after the theft of his phone, they questioned his role in her death. The witness went on to claim that Wynn confided in him his anger with Bryant for taking his car, and not long after this conversation did Taplette look out his window and see Bryant collapse on the porch across the street.

The trial will continue Monday morning with the remainder of Taplette’s testimony.

The trial of Delonte Wynn, charged with the murder of Darlene Bryant, continued Monday and is expected to conclude this week.

Before jurors entered the room Monday morning, attorneys debated whether or not a key witness’ testimony was able to be readdressed since he claimed to not remember what the defense considered a vital piece of the puzzle. The trial on Friday adjourned for the weekend as witness Chester Taplette was in the midst of giving his testimony, and Judge Zoe Bush ultimately decided any questions to do with a prior witness,Donnell Howard, could be addressed to Taplette.

As Taplette continued his testimony, he claimed that Howard confided in him days following Bryant’s death. During this alleged conversation, Howard saidthat Darlene Bryant had been killed because she took someone’s car. Howard was arrested for separate charges shortly after this conversation, and Taplette proceeded to call the police with Howard’s claim.

An MPD officer, familiar with the 4300 block, provided the jury with a variety of evidence, including a map of the blood trail from the Geraldine Apartments, where Bryant was allegedly stabbed, to the porch where she collapsed. The witness also provided photos of a wash cloth that Bryant pressed to her neck to absorb the blood until it could no longer hold. Expert medical examiners reviewed close-up photos of the victim’s autopsy, which showed the gaping almost 3 inch-deep stab wound cutting through the back of Bryant’s neck. While not in the report, an examiner speculated that since Bryant’s blood showed recent use of cocaine, the pace at which the victim’s heart was pumping may have contributed to how quickly she lost blood.

Wynn’s role in the alleged murder has been continuously indeterminate when considering DNA evidence. A juice bottle found next to a pool of Bryant’s blood was used to collect fingerprints and DNA samples, and after a series of forensic scientists approached the stand, no one could confirm through the different analyses whether or not Wynn was present at the scene of the crime. According to the witnesses, neither the DNA nor the prints matched that of the defendant.

During what was supposed to be a 15-minute recess, attorneys hotly debated a series of texts to be used between Wynn, his girlfriend, and Bryant. The defense became concerned with certain text messages that might suggest an angry Wynn, or manipulate what could be perceived as motive. Judge Bush found most of the text thread to be relevant and, thus, permissible.

The trial will continue Tuesday morning with an expert criminal investigator and his analysis of Wynn’s cell phone records leading up to the event of Bryant’s fatal stabbing.