Murder defendant Jerrico Lindsey “shot round after round after round at the helpless, bullet-ridden man lying on the ground,” a prosecutor said today in describing the killing of Benjamin Grajeda in the middle of Kaneohe Bay Drive in May 2007.

However, Lindsey’s lawyer, William Harrison, told jurors in his opening statement that Lindsey’s friend, Charles Freeman Jr., actually fired the fatal shots.
Lawyers for both sides agreed that a central figure in the killing was a woman, Melissa Ordonez, who was romantically linked to both Lindsey and Grajeda.
Lindsey, Freeman and a third man, Reginald Pettway, all entered Grajeda’s Kaneohe house the night of May 14, 2007, with the intention of stealing money and drugs, according to Deputy Prosecutor Darrell Wong.
Wong said Grajeda was a drug dealer from Los Angeles. Harrison also said Grajeda was also a member of a Southern California street gang.
Ordonez let the three men into the home after telling them drugs and money were there.
Grajeda returned while the robbery was in progress and was beaten by the three and thrown in the trunk of a white Ford Crown Victoria.
Freeman told police that he drove the car about a mile and then pulled a lever that opened the trunk. Grajeda ran from the vehicle and Lindsey chased him down, firing at him with a semiautomatic pistol, the prosecutor said. Sixteen rounds entered the victim’s body, according to Wong.
But Harrison said the evidence will show that Freeman, not Lindsey, did the shooting.
Both lawyers agreed that Ordonez set the bloody violence in motion.
Ordonez “slithered away” from the Grajeda’s house after her accomplices had kidnapped Grajeda, Wong said.
Harrison called her “a snake” and said she made off the with drugs and money that had been in the house.
She reached a plea agreement earlier this month that included pleading guilty to burglary and other charges.
Ordonez will not testify in the Lindsey trial. She will be sentenced in November.
Freeman and Pettway also reached plea agreements with the state and will testify as prosecution witnesses against Lindsey.