Victim's friend testifies about 2017 homicide on Madison's Far East Side (2024)

DANE COUNTY | 2017 HOMICIDE

  • Anna Hansen
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Terese Roland, upper left, in court on Tuesday. His homicide trial in the death of Jameel Easter in June 2017 continues Wednesday.

  • ANNA HANSEN , STATE JOURNAL

The deformed bullet medical examiners pulled from Jameel Easter's body, as seen in court Tuesday.

  • ANNA HANSEN , STATE JOURNAL

Anna Hansen

Cellphone tower data and an emergency room physician’s testimony were among evidence presented by the prosecution Tuesday, the second day of the jury trial of Tyrese Roland, who is charged with homicide in the 2017 shooting death of a 25-year-old Madison man.

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Roland, 35, was charged in 2022 with first-degree intentional homicide and possessing a firearm as a felon in the June 2017 killing of Jameel Easter, which stemmed from a fight outside a Downtown Madison bar, according to a criminal complaint.

In a separate case, Johnny Booth, 52, is charged with harboring or aiding a felon.

Just before 3:30 a.m. June 10, Easter was shot multiple times in a Vernon Avenue parking lot outside an apartment building on Madison’s Far East Side. He died of his injuries about half an hour later at Meriter Hospital. In testimony Tuesday, an emergency room doctor who treated Easter in the moments after his arrival described 40 minutes of fruitless attempts to revive Easter, telling the court that Easter had been “essentially dead” on arrival.

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In the hours leading up to the shooting, Downtown surveillance footage captured a large group of people involved in a fight. Police reviewed the security video from in front of the Double U bar, 620 University Ave., and saw Roland with Booth nearby. The two also were seen on video entering and then leaving the State Street Campus Garage one after the other, Booth driving an Illinois rental vehicle and Roland in a white truck.

At the shooting scene, police found Easter’s unoccupied Chrysler 300 with two bullet holes in the car’s passenger side window, which appeared to have been caused by 90-degree impacts. Two bullet casings were found outside the car, and others were found nearby.

Investigators placed Roland at the fight and the Vernon Avenue shooting through cellphone tower data, which Assistant District Attorney Annie Jay presented in court Tuesday for the prosecution.

A witness who drove Easter to the hospital after the shooting identified Roland from a photo lineup, but the witness said the shooter’s name was Tyrese Sanders.

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Madison police personnel, the doctor who treated Easter, and members of the group involved in the fight testified Monday and Tuesday, their recollections supplemented by surveillance footage. A camera at Meriter Hospital captured video footage of a friend carrying Easter in, covered in his blood.

“I always heard people talk about dead weight. Jameel felt like he was 400 pounds. He was a small guy,” that friend recalled on the witness stand Tuesday. Apart from brief statements, the witness said he initially avoided police contact for fear of being a “snitch.” He said he spoke to police in the months after Easter’s death because he wanted “the truth to come out.” About five months later, the witness told officers that Roland had shot Easter.

“I’ve always been honest — I just didn’t want to testify,” he said. “I never lost nobody that close like that. I had a different outlook on life when Jameel died.”

On cross examination, defense attorney Schuyler Boggio quoted that witness’s statement to police, pointing out that the witness made remarks about speaking to law enforcement in exchange for getting out of the probation hold he was on at the time. The witness denied that was his motivation for identifying Roland to police.

Boggio also pointed out inconsistencies in the witness’s statements identifying Roland — the witness said he’d recognized Roland’s black clothes and “lazy eye” but had also mentioned being unable to see the shooter, and, in another instance, the shooter wearing gray pants.

The prosecution is scheduled to continue its case Wednesday morning.

A roster of Madison's homicide victims of 2017

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Victim's friend testifies about 2017 homicide on Madison's Far East Side (2024)

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