CINCINNATI – Stephan Pryor says he’s worried that Kelsie Crow won’t be the only victim of the senseless gunfire outside a Sweet 16 party two year ago.
Kelsie Crow
While Pryor listened to the opening statements and testimony in his nephew’s murder trial last week, he told WCPO that prosecutors have the wrong guy on trial for killing the 17-year-old honor student.
Not only is Rico Mosley innocent of shooting Crow, prosecutors have coerced witnesses to lie, Pryor said. Mosley’s trial is scheduled to resume in the Hamilton County Courthouse Monday morning.
“My condolences go to them,” Pryor said of Crow’s family and friends, who filled the left side of the courtroom last week while Mosley’s family and friends filled the right side.
“By me coming to this trial for the last three or four days, it’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s lying. No evidence. No witnesses. You had other shooters. Where are all the other shooters at?” Pryor asked. “You have the innocent guy in jail locked up over something that he didn’t even do.”
Pryor said Mosley’s refusal to accept a plea deal - risking life in prison when prosecutors him offered a 13-year sentence - is proof that he’s innocent.
“They have the wrong guy inside of there locked up for his life. How did a guy turn down 13 years of his life? Because he knew he was not guilty,” Pryor said.
Crow’s SUV crashed into car after she was shot.
Prosecutor Seth Tieger claims Mosley, now 20, fired the fatal shot as rival gang members unleashed a hail of bullets at each other outside the Melrose YMCA in Walnut Hills in April 2015. Defense attorney Clyde Bennett III claims police don’t know who shot Crow as she started to drive away and there’s no evidence – no gun, no DNA – to prove it was Mosley.
Police said they recovered 60 shell casings from four or five different guns at the scene. Two other people were wounded.
Bennett says police and prosecutors were under community pressure to solve the crime so they pinned it on Mosley. He wasn't charged until a year after the shootings.
“It’s some nonsense. It’s bogus in there. That’s wrong," Pryor said. "Everything that has taken place throughout this week, they have witnesses they’re training to lie.
“When a prosecutor asks them a question, they know the question very simple. When the [defense] lawyer asks the question, they get caught stuttering. It’s a lie.”
Pryor said the truth is in the 911 calls and witnesses who said they saw shots coming from a white van driving by.
“They’re telling the truth from what is going on. They didn’t see no shooter. They’re saying it’s a drive-by,” Pryor said. “Some of them saying it wasn’t. But they can go back to the 911 calls, and you can hear them say it was a drive-by. They saw a white truck go past. There was multiple shooters.”
Pryor said he feels the anguish of Crow’s family. Crow’s mother sobbed on the witness stand Friday as she described what she went through the night her daughter died.
“We’re victims, too,” Pryor said, referring to Mosley and his family. “They have the wrong person in there. It’s wrong. It’s very wrong.
“We have to come together. Put down the guns, and start coming together," he said. "It shouldn’t be over race or a black thing. It should be over the right thing. And the right thing is finding the right shooter who did this to their family.”
