photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Nicholas Beaver appears at his murder trial Monday, July 21, 2025, in Douglas County District Court. At left is one of his defense attorneys, Angela Trimble.

Updated at 6:30 p.m. Monday, July 21

Some jurors appeared startled Monday when three gunshots loudly and abruptly rang out on a video that was being played for them.

Preceding the gunshots, which presumably killed 39-year-old Vincent Lee Walker on March 6, 2024, in front of the Lawrence Public Library, jurors could hear bits and pieces of profanity and an apparent argument that was taking place off camera.

What led up to the gunshots, which were recorded by a nearby climbing gym’s surveillance camera, will be a question for the jurors as they deliberate whether Nicholas Laron Beaver, 34, is guilty of killing Walker in self-defense, as lawyers for Beaver asserted Monday, or as an act of premeditated first-degree murder, as the state has alleged, after Walker reportedly spit in Beaver’s face.

“For that, Mr. Walker lost his life,” Assistant District Attorney Devin Canfield told jurors of the supposed insult. Canfield told the jurors that Walker had “meth in his system,” as a doctor will testify later in the trial.

The state, represented by Canfield and Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald, opened their case with two videos: one from the climbing gym’s surveillance camera, which looked southward down Vermont Street and showed no identifiable people; and one from the library’s soundless security camera, which looked eastward toward Vermont Street and showed, in a small corner of the video, what appeared to be an altercation between two individuals on the sidewalk opposite the library.

Prosecutors said their evidence would include numerous witnesses that would directly or indirectly place Beaver at the scene, as well as a trail of discarded physical evidence between the library and Ninth and Iowa streets, including clothing, a gun and a bicycle with Beaver’s DNA on them.

Defense attorney Razmi Tahirkheli dismissed such evidence, telling the jurors it was just “noise” in an otherwise “simple case” of self-defense.

Walker’s death, Tahirkheli said, was not an “Agatha Christie whodunit” but a tragic combination of three things: “drugs, homelessness and anger.”

Tahirkheli said the two men did not know each other. He told jurors that Walker confronted Beaver in an angry and threatening manner, getting within inches of his face.

“He shot him,” Tahirkheli admitted, “but it was in self-defense, and that’s what you need to look at.”

Apart from the videos, jurors also heard from two Lawrence police officers who worked the incident that evening.

Sgt. Shelby Brouhard spoke of the unsuccessful attempts to save Walker’s life before he was pronounced dead at the scene, and she described items found on or near Walker, including a cellphone, wallet and a blunt knife with a rounded blade that she said looked like a pastry tool for applying frosting.

Jurors saw a photograph of the knife in an evidence bag, but did not see the knife itself Monday.

Tahirkheli asked her if that kind of knife could do damage.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

Jurors also heard from Cpl. Maurice Henry, who described a witness telling him that a dark-skinned Black male riding a bicycle was the shooter, not the person Henry had initially handcuffed. Henry said he found a white Chiefs Super Bowl hat in the northbound lane of Vermont Street that a witness said the shooter had been wearing.

The jurors did not start hearing evidence until after 2:30 p.m. and were sent home early Monday as Judge Stacey Donovan took up a motion outside their presence.

That motion dealt with whether a potentially self-incriminating statement by Beaver would be admitted at the trial. Donovan scheduled a hearing for 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, before the jury is brought in, to determine whether the statement was voluntarily made and hence admissible.

Beaver was originally charged with second-degree murder, but that charge was upgraded to first-degree after Greenwald persuaded Donovan that probable cause existed for the more serious charge.

Beaver, a Topeka man who resided at the Lawrence Community Shelter around the time of the fatal shooting, is currently in custody at the Douglas County Jail on a $1 million bond.

Walker, a musician who performed under the name V-Dubb, had also been part of Lawrence’s unhoused community.

photo by: Contributed

Vincent Lee Walker

Editor’s note: This story has been revised to clarify that people in the gym video were present but not identifiable.