Inmate reluctantly testifies in trial for 2 men accused in girl’s death

By Dave Toplikar

Friday, April 20, 2012 | 10:50 a.m.

As he sat reluctantly in the witness box, Rayshawn Gaines, 18, an inmate in the Nevada prison system, kept telling a Clark County District Court judge and prosecutors he didn’t want to testify.

But eventually the recorded statements Gaines made to detectives when he was only 15 years old about events surrounding the June 12, 2009, shooting death of a 9-year-old girl, Savannah Bullins, emerged late Thursday afternoon in the death penalty murder trial of two Las Vegas men, Kenneth Reid Jr. and Marcus Larry .

The trial for Reid and Larry was to continuing this morning with testimony from two police officers and from Maleek Martinez, 18, who said he was in a fight outside the apartment before the shooting.

Martinez testified that he was given a 9-millimeter handgun by another man after the shooting. Martinez testified that after hearing news reports about the girl’s death, he thought that the gun he was asked to hold might have been involved in the shooting.

Martinez said he talked to his sister and she helped him to arrange to get rid of the gun. She eventually called investigators and Martinez was questioned.

Prosecutors expect to continue presenting their case to the defendants through Wednesday, when the defense takes over.

Gaines is serving a 4- to 15-year sentence for battery with the use of a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm into a structure for a different crime. He was originally arrested as a possible suspect in the girl’s death but was released after Metro detectives questioned him.

Those recorded statements to detectives — which Gaines told defense attorneys he made under duress to avoid going to jail and to protect his pregnant girlfriend — indicated that both Reid and Larry were involved in the shooting at the apartment at 2112 Sun Ave., near Cheyenne Avenue and Interstate 15.

“I told you all what you wanted to hear so I could get the hell out of there,” Gaines told Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc Di Giacomo.

Di Giacomo tried to get Gaines to admit that he had acknowledged both Reid and Larry earlier in the day in jail with gang signs, but Gaines said that wasn’t true.

Prosecutors claim that Reid, Larry and Gaines were all members of the 004 Hoodsmen Blood gang. Prosecutors say the shooting was in retaliation for the girl’s father, Willie Bullins, selling marijuana out of his apartment and encroaching on the gang’s drug territory.

“I want to go back to prison to do my time. I ain’t got time for this,” Gaines said.

Di Giacomo went line by line over a transcript of testimony that Gaines had given during a hearing before a grand jury, and Gaines denied he said it. Di Giacomo eventually had the audio of Gaines’ testimony admitted into evidence. He also played the audio of Gaines’ statements made to detectives to show that Gaines volunteered information about the shooting and that he wasn’t merely parroting what detectives told him.

On the audio, Gaines indicated he feared retaliation from the older males. But after being made promises by detectives that officers would move him and his pregnant girlfriend out of their neighborhood into a safer area in Henderson, he eventually told detectives that the shooters names were “Kenny” (Reid) and “Fresh,” which was Larry’s street name.

Willie Bullins, who testified Wednesday afternoon and again Thursday morning, had told police the shooting happened while he was standing in the upstairs living room of his apartment as Savannah watched television in the same room.

Bullins said he ducked and tried to get Savannah downstairs, but one of the bullets struck her before she could get to the stairs, the police report said. Bullins told police he carried her downstairs, where she stopped breathing, and his wife gave the girl CPR before paramedics arrived.

The girl was transported to University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. Police said there were five other children, ages 2 to 11, in the apartment, but no one else was hit.

Reid and Larry have each been charged with murder with the use of a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit murder with a deadly weapon in Savannah's death.

They have also been charged with seven counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, five counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of discharging a firearm into a structure. Each charge also carries a gang enhancement that could extend any sentence, if there is a conviction.

Prosecutors have also charged Reid with one count of being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to shooting a former rival gang member. He served the minimum four years of a 10-year sentence for assault with a deadly weapon and to promote, further or assist a gang, according to prison records.

The defendants are each in custody on $720,000 bail.