Two people who said earlier that Cortez Sims was the person who carried out a mass shooting at College Hill Courts on Jan. 17, 2015, were not available to prosecutors on Thursday.
Bianca Horton, who was grazed by a bullet, was gunned down in May of last year and her body was dumped by the side of the road.
Marcel "Baby Watts" Christopher, who took bullets near the heart, the lungs and the stomach as well as the side, refused to testify before a jury in the courtroom of Judge Barry Steelman though he was brought to the stand against his will twice.
Christopher, who is in federal custody, said, "I don't know nothing. I didn't see nothing." He added, "My mama said I don't have to testify."
Christopher was charged with a firearms violation in late February. His indictment says he possessed a gun on Feb. 24 after being convicted in court of a misdemeanor charge of domestic assault and while being a drug user.
Prosecutors played the testimony of Ms. Horton and Christopher from Juvenile Court and also a tape in which Christopher told detective Chris Blackwell that Sims was the shooter.
The shooting also left Ms. Horton's infant daughter, Zoe, paralyzed from the chest down and her friend, Talitha Bowman, dead. The medical examiner's office said Ms. Bowman was shot twice in the back. One was a graze wound, but the other tore through both parts of her heart, through both lungs and through her liver.
Ms. Horton at the earlier hearing said Ms. Talitha Bowman was in a bedroom with two of her (Ms. Horton's) children, while Ms. Horton was in another bedroom with Christopher. She said she saw Ms. Bowman going downstairs. Ms. Bowman answered a knock at the door and let Sims inside, it was testified. He proceeded up the stairs.
Ms. Horton said she heard Ms. Bowman say, "Baby Watts, somebody wants you."
The witness, who became choked up several times, said she then saw Sims outside the bedroom door where Ms. Bowman and the children were sleeping. She said, "He was holding a gun and shooting into the room."
She said he then moved outside their bedroom and began firing at them. She was grazed, and she said Christopher went to the floor with multiple gunshot wounds.
Ms. Horton said she went to the other bedroom and found her friend lying dead on the floor. She said she checked on her 15-month-old child, Zoey Horton, and saw that her t-shirt was covered with blood. She said, "I raised it up to see where she had been hit."
She said Zoey had to have therapy in Atlanta and was still seeing multiple doctors.
Ms. Horton said she barely knew Sims, saying she had seen him about a month earlier "in a roomful of people." She said she heard someone call his name on that occasion.
Police asked Christopher, as he lay on the floor, who carried out the shooting. A detective said, "We need to know who did it."
Christopher looked up and said, "Cortez Sims."
He was asked, "Why did he do it?"
Christopher answered, "I don't know."
Christopher asked if he was shot in the heart. An officer told him, "You were shot in the side. You are going to be fine."
Prosecutors called a gang expert who said the shooting was one in a string of retaliatory attacks by two Bloods gangs against one another. He said Sims is with the Athens Park Bloods and Christopher is a Bounty Hunter.
The witness said Chattanooga has a host of other gangs, including "the Rollin 60s, the Vice Lords, the Aryan Nation, the White Supremacists. You name it. Chattanooga's got it."
He said Sims was "validated" as a gang member eight and a half weeks prior to the shooting.
The jury heard a jailhouse call made by Sims to Cornelius Birdsong, a leader of the Bounty Hunters. Birdsong said the Bloods feud began while he was in jail and said he did not agree with it.
He and Sims talked about "stripping down" Christopher for being a "snitch" against Sims. "He needs to be gone for real," Birdsong said.