ROANOKE, Va. -- The prosecution and defense presented their closing arguments Monday in the trial of six alleged gang members accused in the murder of Waynesboro reserve police captain Kevin Quick.
Quick was abducted and found shot to death in Goochland County in 2014.
Online court records showed three of the nine suspects initially charged in the indictment entered guilty pleas. Daniel Mathis, Shantai Shelton, Mersadies Shelton, Kweli Uhuru, Halisi Uhuru, and Anthony Stokes are the six remaining suspects on trial.
Prosecutors said four members of the 99 Goon Syndikate, a branch of the Bloods street gang, held Quick at gunpoint in his own SUV, when they discovered his Waynesboro police id.
Kevin Quick murder suspects
That's when, they said the group decided to drive to a timbered lot in Columbia, Virginia and shot Quick once in the head.
Quick's murder is the highest profile part of a larger conspiracy of armed robbery and drug dealing the 99 Goon Syndikate is charged with. Prosecutors said the gang spelled their gang name Syndikate with a 'k' to disrespect the Crips, which is their rival gang that starts with a 'c'.
During his closing remarks, the prosecutor also recited dozens of names of victims the group "terrorized" in Louisa and Charlottesville over a five month period.
The goal for prosecutors was to show the street gang was in fact a criminal enterprise, organized by Halisi Uhuru and Anthony Stokes. Prosecutors said they are the gang's rings leaders who were not directly involved in murdering Quick but instead the cover up.
Defense attorneys for the six suspects worked to cast doubt in the jury's mind that the 99 Goon Syndikate was really all that organized.
Daniel Mathis' attorney pointed out that the group's hierarchy was loosely defined at best, and that their alleged crimes were mostly disconnected acts by a group of young people, not a greater racketeering enterprise.
Kweli Uhuru's attorney brought up testimony from witnesses that Kevin Quick actually owed money to Mathis.
In court, the attorney said that could be nonsense, but it needed to be pointed out.
The defense also shined a light on the fact that many of the gang's insiders who testified at the trial got plea deals -- with one attorney asking "would you trust those people to sell you a used car?"
Now, the prosecution will rebut the defense’s closing arguments and then the case will be given to a Roanoke jury.
The retrial for six reputed gang members comes after a Charlottesville judge ordered the trial be moved to Roanoke after one of the suspects got a list of the jurors during their original trial in May of 2015.
