CrimeWatch

Trial Starts In Death Of E. Bay Ivy League Student

 CBS 5 CrimeWatch

BERKELEY (BCN) ― A prosecutor and a defense attorney agreed Monday that Christopher Hollis fired the shot that killed his close friend Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a popular Berkeley High School graduate and Dartmouth College student, nearly three years ago.

But in their opening statements in Hollis's long-delayed trial in Alameda County Superior Court, prosecutor Elgin Lowe and defense attorney Greg Syren disagreed about Hollis's state of mind and his degree of responsibility for the deadly incident that occurred near the intersection of College Avenue and Dwight Way in Berkeley about 2 a.m. on July 17, 2005.

Lowe said Hollis, a 25-year-old Hayward man, should be convicted of murder because he acted with conscious disregard for human life by aiming a .30-caliber gun at a crowd on the street and pulling the trigger four to five times.

Lowe said Hollis, who attended Berkeley High with Willis-Starbuck, and two other men responded to her call for help after she and several women friends got into a confrontation with seven to 10 University of California, Berkeley football players who at first tried to pick up the women and then insulted them after their advances were rebuffed.

Lowe said the shooting "was not an accident" because Hollis didn't even see Willis-Starbuck in the crowd on the street and she wasn't in danger at the time.

The prosecutor said, "In his (Hollis's) mind, he was firing at a group of men."

But Syren told jurors that Hollis should only be convicted of manslaughter, stating that his actions were "purely an attempt to scare people away from the location."

The defense attorney said, "This case is not about murder or malice, but is the kind of tragedy that occurs when someone makes a rash, stupid decision while in possession of a handgun."

Syren said Hollis and Willis-Starbuck were such close friends that they called each other "brother" and "sister" and described the incident as "an attempt to protect a friend based on what he believed was a threat to her."

Hollis is charged with murdering Willis-Starbuck, who had recently completed her freshman year and had a summer job in Berkeley providing social and health services to low-income women, as well as assault with a firearm in connection with a minor injury to University of California, Berkeley football player Gary Doxy, who was grazed on his right wrist.

He's also charged with being an ex-felon in possession of a handgun, as he was convicted of selling marijuana for sale in 2002 and wasn't supposed to be carrying any weapons.

Syren said the shooting occurred on a night in Berkeley in which "people from 18 to 25 seemed to be out looking for a party."

He said Willis-Starbuck had been partying with a group of female friends and a toxicologist will testify about the amount of alcohol that had been in her system.

Syren said one of Hollis's friends was so drunk that he apparently passed out just before the shooting incident, but Hollis didn't drink heavily.

Syren said the confrontation between Willis-Starbuck and the Cal football players was lengthy and some witnesses say that several players followed her to her room in an apartment building that was near the shooting scene.

According to Syren some witnesses also say that several Cal players may have touched or grabbed the arms of some of the women.

He said Willis-Starbuck "was frantic" when she called Hollis four times between 1:35 a.m. and 1:43 a.m. that morning."

Syren said witnesses heard Willis-Starbuck tell Hollis in a cell phone call, "You need to get over here. If you're my brother you need to come over here and bring your pistol."

Syren said that after Hollis fired the first shot, Willis-Starbuck yelled, "That's my brother" and told people, "Get out of here—this is my block."

The defense lawyer said that when Hollis left the scene he had no idea he had shot Willis-Starbuck and said that when he was told of her death he told a friend, "I think I just smoked her sister, I feel like smoking myself."

But Lowe said that in a tape-recorded call from jail when he was arrested two months after Willis-Starbuck was killed, Hollis bragged about the shooting, telling a friend, "They don't call me C4 for nothing," referring to his nickname, which in turn refers to an explosive.

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