As Suspect Is Acquitted, Shooting Victims Protest
Verdict in Second Trial Over 2002 Attack Leaves Even Defense Attorneys Surprised

By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 2, 2007

On Halloween night in 2002, Ibrahim Sidibe boarded a Metro bus in Silver Spring with his pregnant fiancee and his best friend, Nicholas Watson. The fiancee mocked a teenage passenger whose earphone-clad head was bobbing back and forth, sending laughter rippling through the bus.

The trio stepped off the bus near a convenience store. Minutes later, Sidibe and Watson were shot. Francesco Kelly, the passenger at whose expense the jokes were made, was soon arrested. The fiancee, Melissa Wainwright, was not shot.

Kelly, who was 16 at the time, was found guilty in 2003 of attempted murder, but an appellate court overturned that verdict and ordered a new trial.

Last week, a jury in Montgomery County acquitted Kelly. The outcome stunned Watson and Sidibe, who were 22 and 21 at the time of the shootings.

Watson stormed out of the courtroom before the jury foreman had uttered the final "not guilty." He had a seizure and collapsed near the elevators.

Watson, who was shot seven times, said he was grateful to the state but enraged by the verdict. "The state was very compassionate, very dedicated," he said.

Sidibe, who never married Wainwright, was left paralyzed from the neck down. He was wheeled out of the courtroom after the verdict was delivered, his mind reeling.

"How could you leave a man in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and not even care about what you've done?" he recalled thinking. "I'm lying here in a diaper right now."

Kelly was arrested minutes after the shooting, and Wainwright and Watson identified him as the gunman. Prosecutors said he opened fire because he felt ridiculed. The first jury that heard the case agreed and, in 2003, convicted him of first-degree attempted murder. A judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison.

But Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled in 2005 that Kelly had not received a fair trial. A majority of the court agreed that the trial judge erred by not allowing Kelly's attorney to call two police officers to the stand. In a dissenting opinion, two judges said Kelly received a fair trial. "To reverse this case would be a travesty upon justice," they wrote.

Shortly after the jury in the latest trial announced its verdict, Kelly -- who had long-standing behavioral and substance-abuse problems, according to one of his attorneys -- walked.

The verdict surprised even the defense team, composed of a former prosecutor making his debut at the defense table and his partner, who had taken on his first criminal case.

"I was, myself, happily surprised," said Michael Lytle, the second attorney. "I think the state may have shown that my client may have done it, but not beyond a reasonable doubt."

Seth Zucker, a spokesman for the Montgomery County state's attorney's office, issued a statement saying that the state was "disappointed by the verdict" and that prosecutors felt the case was "well tried" both times. Kelly did not respond to a request for an interview made through his attorney.

A member of the jury, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her privacy, said reaching the verdict was tough. "The whole process was very, very difficult and very draining from the beginning to the end," she said. "I think everyone felt the exact thing."

She said she did not think "there were holes in the case," but she said she and other jurors felt that prosecutors did not present "adequate evidence." She said Kelly's age had not been a crucial factor and declined to say whether she and other jurors found the victims' testimony credible.

The shootings occurred during the same month that John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized the region with sniper attacks. The two were arrested Oct. 24.

In the Halloween shootings, officers arriving at the 7-Eleven near New Hampshire Avenue and Lockwood Drive found Sidibe first, on the ground, shot once in the forehead. Inside the store, they found Watson, conscious despite having been shot in the head and the back of the neck.

"I have to fight long enough to identify this kid," Watson recalled thinking.

Watson and Wainwright provided police with a detailed description, and with the assistance of a tracking dog, officers took Kelly into custody minutes later. The gun was never recovered.

Kelly told detectives that he had been involved in the incident on the bus but denied being the shooter.

Sidibe, Watson and Wainwright testified in both trials. A jailhouse informant testified in the trials that Kelly told him he was responsible for the shootings and that he had thrown the gun in a dumpster.

Watson said he was arrested repeatedly after the shooting, in part because of financial problems stemming from his injuries. He testified at the second trial that he ran into Kelly in jail and that Kelly apologized and asked him to testify that he did not see the gunman. Kelly's attorneys assailed Watson's credibility, drawing attention to his criminal record.

Kelly did not take the stand. His attorneys did not call the witnesses whose absence in the first case had led the appellate court to overturn the convictions.

Researchers Meg Smith and Aruna Jain contributed to this report.