Trial begins in fatal shooting of Laylah Petersen
The first piece of evidence shown to jurors Monday during the trial of Carl Barrett Jr. was a professional portrait of a girl wearing a red polka dot dress.
"Is that Laylah?" asked prosecutor Sara Beth Hill.
The woman on the witness stand wept.
"Yes, it is," Maggie Fogl replied between sobs.
Maggie Fogl and her husband, Robert Fogl, were the first two witnesses and detailed what they experienced the night of Nov. 6, 2014, when their 5-year-old granddaughter, Laylah Petersen, was shot and killed.
Barrett, 21, is one of three men charged in connection with the shooting and the only one to take it to trial. The other accused shooter, Arlis Gordon, 24, quietly pleaded guilty last Tuesday to amended charges — a day after he appeared in court for a final pretrial, and the accused driver has pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
Barrett has pleaded not guilty to first-degree reckless homicide and three counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety. His attorney, Christopher L. Hartley, deferred his opening statement until after prosecutors call all their witnesses.
Fogl testified she brought Laylah and her 7-year-old sister Destiny to her house near N. 58th St. and W. Fairmount Ave. Her husband came home from work shortly after 6 p.m. All four were sitting in the living room: Destiny, Laylah and their grandfather on the couch, while Maggie sat across from them on a love seat.
Laylah had scooted onto her grandfather's lap and Destiny was reading when gunshots burst through the front window.
"We're sitting there and I hear a 'bing' through the window and I said 'What the heck was that,'" Maggie Fogl said. "I felt like a woosh over my head then I heard boom-boom-boom."
Her husband told her to get on the floor and she crawled on the ground to get her phone, which was charging nearby, and called 911.
"The next thing you know Robert says 'Laylah's been hit,' and then Destiny starts screaming for Laylah," she said.
She retrieved a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around Laylah's head, where a bullet had wounded her. Several members of the jury — consisting of six men and seven women — appeared shaken by her testimony.
Ballistic evidence
Hill, the prosecutor, then called several detectives to the stand who testified about evidence, particularly ballistic evidence, found at the scene of the shooting. In her opening remarks, Hill said evidence will be key.
"You will hear that these guns essentially connected everything," she said.
Milwaukee police found a dozen 9mm shell casings at the scene and determined two guns were used in the shooting. Half of the casings matched casings recovered at the scene of two other shootings in Milwaukee, meaning the gunshots in all three incidents were fired from the same gun, according to court documents.
The other two shootings occurred on Oct. 8, 2014, on W. Hampton Ave. near N. 108th St., and in the early morning hours of Nov. 6, 2014, in the area of W. Meinecke Ave. and N. 10th St.
Barrett was charged in the Oct. 8 retaliatory shooting, which left a man wounded in the leg, and prosecutors said Monday his alleged accomplice in that shooting has identified Barrett as the shooter in that case.
Barrett also was identified as a suspect in the second shooting, which occurred about 14 hours before Laylah was killed, by his alleged accomplice, Divonte Forbes, according to prosecutors. Forbes faced 13 felony charges related to that shooting and another shooting, and ultimately pleaded guilty to three felony charges, online court records show. The other charges were dismissed, but a judge can consider them at sentencing.
Gun tied to Laylah killing linked to multiple shootings
On the evening of Nov. 6, 2014, prosecutors say Paul Farr drove Barrett, Gordon and Forbes to the area of N. 58th St. and W. Fairmont Ave. where Barrett and Gordon fired into the home of Petersen's grandparents, having mistakenly thought they were targeting Jacquan Howard.
Earlier that day, a jury had acquitted Howard in the shooting death of a man Gordon considered his brother.
According to the criminal complaint, after Laylah was killed by one of the many shots into the house, the four men went to an apartment where Gordon and Barrett laid their guns on a table and bragged about the shooting.
Forbes was not charged in Laylah's death. Farr, 25, pleaded guilty in February to two counts of harboring or aiding a felon. The prosecutor said jurors would hear from both men during Barrett's trial, which continues Tuesday.
It's unclear if Gordon will testify. He pleaded guilty last Tuesday to second-degree reckless homicide and three counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety, all of which had been amended down from first-degree offenses.
The trial started three days after Laylah's birthday, Sept. 23. She would have been 7.
Violence against children leaves bereaved parents, frustrated community