KINGSTON, N.Y. — Jurors in the Corey Smith murder trial heard an audio recording Monday that prosecutors say captured the sounds of gunfire and a woman yell “Corey, No!” Corey, No!” as Ashley Dixon was being gunned down at the Stuyvesant Charter apartments last year.
For a Freeman reporter, court officers and family members who were watching proceedings on closed-circuit television in another part of the courthouse, the audio was largely unintelligible, with listeners able to hear only what sounded like a loud bang and lots of muffled sounds.
But in his opening statement to jurors on Thursday, Senior Assistant District Attorney Gerard Van Loan told jurors they would hear on the recording three gunshots and hear Dixon’s girlfriend Janai Lawrence yell “Corey, No!,” as Smith, 36, fired his .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun at Dixon, striking him in the neck, chest and arm.
On Monday, Senior Assistant District Attorney Gerard Van Loan said it’s unclear whether Lawrence, who prosecutors say was an eye witness to the shooting, will take the witness stand.
Lawrence was among those included on the witness list and in his opening statements to the jury, Van Loan told jurors Lawrence would testify that she drove Smith to the Stuyvesant Charter apartments to meet Dixon, 31, and watched from only a few feet away as Smith fired on Dixon. On Thursday, jurors were shown photos of what prosecutors said was Lawrence’s Mercedes Benz at the apartment complex.
She has yet to take the witness stand, however, and following a conference with the judge on Monday, court proceedings were adjourned until 1 p.m. Tuesday, with the judge telling jurors “the case is still with the people” but as a result of “legal issues,” the day’s proceedings had to end.
Van Loan declined to comment on those pending legal issues.
Asked whether Lawrence would take the witness stand on Tuesday, Van Loan shrugged and said “it remains to be seen.”
Dixon was shot three times at around 7:20 p.m.on Feb. 11, 2020, near the 46 Sheehan Court apartment complex. He was pronounced dead a short time later at HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley’s Broadway campus. On Friday, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy said Dixon was struck once in the left arm, once by a round that entered his neck, exited and re-entered his upper right arm, and once in the chest by a round that fractured his ribs and perforated his esophagus and aorta before becoming lodged in the left side of his chest.
Prosecutors have previously claimed that Smith is a member of the G-Shine subset of the Bloods street gang and Dixon is a member of the Sex, Money, Murder subset of the Bloods. They said that Smith shot Dixon following a series of telephone calls earlier in the day on Feb. 11, 2020, including one that involved a “heated argument” about 30 minutes before the shooting, because Dixon had become a liability to the gang.
William T. Martin, Smith’s attorney, has denied Smith’s involvement in a gang and so far in the case, prosecutors have made no mention of any potential gang connections.
On Monday, state police Senior Investigator Brian Salmon testified that he analyzed the “infotainment system” in Smith’s Dodge Durango and found that the vehicle was parked at the Styvestant Charter apartments at the time Dixon was shot. He also identified a series of call logs pulled from the car’s infotainment system.
State Police Investigator David Meyers on Monday testified that Smith was driving that Dodge Durango the next day when he was arrested in New York City.
Meyers said he was a part of a contingent of police vehicles who pulled Smith over at about 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 12, 2020. He said when he approached Smith, who had already been taken into custody and was sitting in the back of a police vehicle, Smith asked “is this a body warrant?”
Under questioning by Van Loan, Meyers said that Smith’s question was spontaneous and not in response to any questions posed to him, and said that Smith asked the question “as soon as I got into the vehicle.”
During a pretrial hearing, Meyers testified the only time he’s ever heard the term “body warrant” was in connection to homicide or murder. However, he offered no such testimony Monday. Meyers resisted efforts by Martin during cross-examination, however, to say that a body warrant was simply another way to say arrest warrant.
Testimony in the trial will resume Tuesday at 1 p.m. in the Ulster County Courthouse.
