Marcus Richardson was filled with regret after he stabbed fellow student Contrell Townsend in the Montbello High School cafeteria in January 2005, a Denver jury was told Friday.
“He kept telling me, ‘I messed up, I messed up,”‘ Derek Parks testified in Richardson’s second-degree murder trial. “I asked him what he was going to do and he said he didn’t know.”
Parks, a close friend of Richardson, said he grabbed Richardson after he heard that Townsend had been stabbed.
Together they walked out of the school as teachers, Denver police and school security guards rushed to help the fatally wounded 17-year-old Townsend.
Parks was one of the last prosecution witnesses before prosecutors Adrienne Greene and Tom Clinton rested their case. The defense then called two witnesses, former student Erin Manis, 18, and Emiley Young, a Montbello teacher at the time of the incident.
Parks said Richardson, then 16, had earlier been challenged to a fight by Townsend.
They started to go outside to fight but turned around and went back to the cafeteria after spotting the school principal. There, Parks said, Townsend and Richardson again exchanged words.
They began to wrestle, with the bigger Townsend quickly getting the upper hand, slamming Richardson down and holding him in a headlock. He said Townsend suddenly got up and ran off. That’s when he grabbed Richardson and left, Parks said.
Earlier, teacher Sharon Cochran testified that she was monitoring the cafeteria when she heard a “boom” and saw Richardson, to whom she taught ninth-grade English, and another student fighting on a table- top.
She said that as she approached, a second fight – apparently related to the Richardson fight – broke out between two other students and she ordered them to stop. She said that she then ran for assistance and when she re-entered the cafeteria, she heard a scream and saw Townsend on the floor, face down. He appeared to be clutching something under him, Cochran said.
She said that as Townsend was turned over, a fully opened pocket knife fell to the ground.
Of the more than a dozen witnesses who testified before Cochran, none said Townsend was armed. Many have said they saw Richardson with a knife.
Prosecutor Greene suggested that the knife was the one Denver police officer Nelson Henry used to cut off Townsend’s shirt as he tried to save Townsend’s life.
Cochran conceded that the knife could have belonged to Henry.
Young, the other teacher, said that when the critically wounded Townsend staggered toward her, clutching his side, he was holding no weapon. The only thing in his hands was blood from his wounds, she said.
She helped him to the floor. When he was turned over, Young said she didn’t see a knife.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
