TAMPA, Fla. – A jury is expected to begin deliberations in the trial of five men who are accused in the shooting death of four-year-old Suni Bell.
On Monday, the state and the defense made their closing statements after about a week of testimony.
The prosecution began its closing statement in the morning, but it was interrupted by an angry outburst from Zvante Sampson. He could be heard yelling out from his seat in the courtroom, “Somebody shot at me. Somebody shot back.”
The judge instructed bailiffs to remove Sampson from the courtroom. As he was being escorted out, Sampson was heard saying, “I feel sorry for the little girl, but somebody shot at us. It’s the truth.”
The court went into a recess, during which time Sampson told the judge he didn’t want to be in the courtroom any longer. He was taken back to a holding cell, where a TV was set up for him to watch the remainder of the trial.
The shooting of Suni Bell
The backstory:
The state said Suni Bell and her family were coming back from a celebration of life for a family member who had died, and they were headed to a get-together following the event that night in August 2021. Prosecutors said Suni’s uncle, Willy Brown, was driving the car and her mother, Mary Harrison, was in the passenger’s seat.
READ: Suni Bell’s family sees photos of her lifeless body as state rests its case in murder trial
They couldn’t find the location of the get-together, so they pulled off into a field to figure out the directions. Prosecutors said Sampson, Bedward, Denson, Thompson and Hammond were among a group that was hanging out at a nearby Chevron gas station, and they started watching the car that Suni’s family was in.
The group was seen gathering outside the gas station on surveillance footage.
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Prosecutors said some of the men masked their faces and several grabbed guns, before getting into several cars and following the car that Suni and her family were in. Surveillance footage appears to show the cars following their car and ambushing them with about 40 bullets.
Suni’s mother and uncle survived, but the child later died at the hospital.
Five charged with murder in Suni Bell’s death
Dig deeper:
Sampson, along with Jaylin Bedward, James Denson, Quandarious Hammond and Andrew Thompson are charged with murder in the child’s death.
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Each of the defendants will be evaluated separately, and the jury will have to reach a verdict for each defendant.
The prosecution says the five men acted as a group. Prosecutors called the alleged ambush a team effort, adding that the state doesn’t have to prove who fired the shot that killed the child.
The other side:
The suspects’ attorneys have argued that there is no way to know which of them pulled the trigger and that the bullet that hit Suni is not tied to any of the guns recovered. The defense attorneys made several efforts to have the judge throw out the charges against their clients, but all were denied.
The defense says there is a lack of evidence in this case from the prosecution, arguing a lot of the evidence presented is circumstantial.
Though the five men are being tried together, some tried to argue that there is no proof that they pulled the trigger on the gun that fired the fatal shot. Others, have tried to claim that they were returning fire after being shot at first, but the state says there is no evidence to support that the men were acting in self-defense.
The defense teams for each of the men rested their case without calling any witnesses to the stand.
What’s next:
The jury is expected to come back Tuesday morning for jury instructions and begin deliberating.
The Source: This story was written with information presented at trial and previous FOX 13 News reports.