Victim’s Girlfriend Testifies in Homicide Case After Arrest for Contempt

By Lily Engel [former] - July 31, 2024
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

A homicide victim’s girlfriend agreed to testify on July 30 in front of DC Superior Court Judge Michael O’Keefe after being arrested the previous day for contempt of court.

Bernard Matthews, 44, is charged with first-degree, premeditated murder while armed, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, unlawful possession of a firearm by a convict, and carrying a pistol without a license for his alleged involvement in the shooting of 22-year-old Diamonte Green. The incident occurred on Feb. 16, 2021, on the 300 block of 33rd Street, SE.

Green’s girlfriend who was arrested on July 29 for refusing to testify, came back to court as a witness for the prosecution.

She claimed she had “safety concerns” about testifying because she had received “threats before”. 

During her testimony, she was presented with text messages she received from Green the day of the incident. According to the witness, he was getting increasingly angry and threatening and she felt “drained” having to deal with it so she didn’t tell her family. 

The witness said that Green thought she and her cousin, Matthews’s son, were dating behind his back. Her cousin called to tell her that Green was threatening him and she told him not to respond.

According to phone records, Green repeatedly called her and when she didn’t pick up he kept texting “b**** answer the phone”. 

Then he texted her a screenshot from Instagram of Matthews alleged Instagram account requesting to follow him and wrote “now u want to have who ever trying follow me b****”.  

When she didn’t reply, she testified, he used a different messaging application and said “tell him come outside,” referring to the witness’ cousin. The prosecution alleged that while he sent this threat, he was not actually outside the cousin’s apartment. 

The witness claimed she did not know a friend of Green’s friend lived in the area. The prosecution presented her with her grand jury testimony in which she stated “I know that [the friend] used to live there” when given the address of the shooting. The prosecutors wanted to show that the witness knew where the friend lived and that Green was at that address, which could be how Matthews knew where to find him.

The prosecution also called on a witness from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to testify about cell phone data for Matthews’ number. 

Using call logs, the witness said that Matthews was in the vicinity of the crime scene at the time of the shooting, but stated he could not identify a specific location.

Defense attorney Marnitta King questioned the validity of the cell site data, saying that Matthews’ son lived at an apartment in the vicinity of the crime scene and that is where Matthews could have been. 

The witness said this is correct but that the plot points of his cell phone moved which showed that it is likely the cell phone moved a long distance that would be bigger than from one end of an apartment complex to the other. 

A digital forensic specialist then testified about the cell phone extractions from the phones said to belong to Matthews’ son and the son’s mother.

The call logs from the extraction showed that the mother of Matthews’ son had called Matthews at least three times the day of the incident. 

The text exchange between Matthews’ son and the mother are inconsistent, which the witness said would happen if the mother had deleted some of the texts from her phone. 

On Matthews’ son’s phone, his mother texted him saying “whenever he send a message screen shot it but don’t respond”, in reference to Green.

To which Matthews’ son replied “delete”.

There were also texts on the sons phone from Green:

“Ima show how we step”

“f*** u think I’m coming to fight hog ima be right there kid be outside”

“Tell your b**** a** mova or who don’t call no police when I pull up hot a** family”

The parties are set to reconvene July 31.