For the first time since 2010 when he was shot in the head and left in a row of bushes for dead, Marcus Hurd faced the accused gunmen today.
The last time the men allegedly saw each other Hurd could walk.
But today Hurd offered testimony from his electric wheelchair.
Hurd, now 33, testified in the murder case of two men who are accused of shooting him and four other people during a robbery in Mattapan. It was one of the city’s worst crimes in years and left the four other people, including a 2-year-old and his mother, dead.
He is now a quadriplegic and the scars on the left side of his head were visible.
Hurd’s testimony gave the jury a stunning first-person account of how the robbery and shooting were carried out.
He admitted to arriving at the home of one of the victim’s “to buy a bag of weed.”
As Hurd and another man, Simba Martin, sat in Hurd’s rented SUV, they were set upon by “a bald, heavyset man” who ordered them out of the car at gunpoint and to strip off their clothes.
“He said ‘You all know what time it is,’” Hurd said, adding that he knew it was a robbery that was taking place.
The gunmen, who he described as tall and skinny and holding a firearm that looked like a “mac” gun, made him stand naked in the corner of the apartment as they took a safe and other items.
He said he was then forced outside by the “tall” gunman who was walking behind him. That’s when he was ordered to lay in a cluster of bushes and was shot.
Hurd was still alive but couldn’t move. He said he couldn’t see anything in the bushes, but heard gunfire and then eventually sirens and police who were talking about the dead bodies in the roadway.
He said he spoke up so the officers could find him. Hurd said he told him he was in the bushes and they told him to come out.
“I told him I can’t. I told him I couldn’t move,” Hurd said.
Meanwhile the defense attorneys tested Hurd.
Defense attorneys used much of their time cross-examining Hurd to test his memory.
They repeatedly asked him about statements he made to police within weeks of the shooting.
At one point, a defense attorney referred to a transcript of Hurd’s testimony and asked him about a detail in the way the robbery occurred. Hurd said if he told authorities that, it wasn’t how it happened and his misspeaking could have been the result of him being “delusional” so soon after being shot in the head.
They also asked him how he came to learn of the arrests of the defendants and if family members told him police accused three men in the shooting before Hurd could regain his memory.
Defense Attorney John Amabile also questioned Hurd on his criminal history and Hurd admitted to being previously convicted of gun and drug charges.
