Testimony contradicts self-defense motive / LJWorld.com

An eyewitness testified Tuesday that moments after shooting at close range and killing an acquaintance at a Lawrence apartment, Lafayette Cosby said, "That (expletive) tried to kill me!"

The testimony from Chad Davis during the second day of Cosby's first-degree murder trial contradicts the central point of Cosby's trial defense: that Cosby shot and killed Robert T. Martin to defend another man inside the apartment, whom he knew Martin secretly planned to shoot.

Other witnesses Tuesday included two women at the party who at the time were exotic dancers at All Stars, including Andrea Garrison, who testified she was about 8 feet from Martin when Cosby began firing.

"I had just seen someone shot and killed," she said. "I was in hysterics."

Prosecutors say the April 4 shooting at Jefferson Commons, 2511 W. 31st St., was a premeditated first-degree murder that happened as Martin sat defenseless on a couch. But Cosby's defense attorney, Greg Robinson, has told jurors Cosby believed Martin was concealing a gun under a jacket and was about to shoot party-goer Alrick Johnson, whom he blamed for sending him to jail in the past.

Only Cosby, 25, and Martin, 28, know what happened moments before the shooting when they were alone together in a bedroom of the apartment, Robinson said. But Davis, a friend of Martin's who came to the party with him, testified that he heard the two men laughing and giggling and saw them talking casually as they sat on a bed in the room.

Davis testified both he and Martin had been smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol that night.

Prosecutors say Martin didn't have a gun in the apartment. But Robinson has suggested that key items could have been taken from the crime scene.

About four hours passed between the time Martin was shot and the time police were notified, and several of those at the party later admitted returning to the apartment before police arrived.

Robinson asked Davis and other eyewitnesses whether police searched their cars or apartments for evidence. They said 'no.'

-- 6News reporter/anchor Janet Reid contributed to this report.