Jury selected in trial of man charged in Coastal Carolina University’s student shooting death
Jurors will begin Tuesday hearing testimony and evidence in the trial for a man charged in the shooting death of a Coastal Carolina University student.
A jury was selected and pretrial motions were settled Monday in the trial of
22-year-old Marquis Spencer McDonald, who is charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The charges stem from the Feb. 26, 2013, shooting death of CCU sophomore Anthony Darnell Liddell of Bennettsville.
Another man, Stephon Mclain, 24, also remains jailed with no bail on two counts of murder in Liddell’s shooting and a 2012 homicide. Mclain has waived his right to a bail hearing.
On Monday during pretrial motions, Circuit Court Judge R. Markley Dennis ruled that a statement McDonald made to agents from the State Law Enforcement Division was admissible. McDonald’s attorney, Greg McCollum, objected to the written statement being used as evidence in the trial because it is being used against his client, he said.
“The jury will have to make the ultimate decision beyond a reasonable doubt,” Dennis said when he issued his ruling.
The statement was made to Randall Truss, a SLED agent who investigated Liddell’s death. SLED investigates all deaths on university campuses in the state.
Truss read the statement — which had some illegible words — during testimony about the conditions under which McDonald made the statement.
In it, Truss said that McDonald wrote that he met Liddell to purchase marijuana and a friend of Liddell introduced as “Black” accompanied him. During the transaction in the parking lot of CCU’s University Place apartments located off S.C. 544, McDonald wrote in the statement that “Black” pulled out a gun and all the men struggled to get it.
“I grabbed it. We was struggling and me try to take it from him and it went off, but Ant [Liddell] wasn’t shot then,” Truss said as he read the statement.
McDonald told police in the statement that he punched “Black” in the face and he fell out of McDonald’s vehicle, so McDonald drove away and he heard another gunshot as he exited the parking lot.
Truss testified during the motion hearing that McDonald also worked with a composite sketch artist to complete a sketch of the man he identified as “Black” and the shooter in the incident.
The incident was reported to authorities by people who heard the gunshots and found Liddell shot in the parking lot at 7:22 p.m. Feb. 26, 2013, police said. Liddell died about an hour later while being treated at a local hospital.
Neither McDonald nor Mclain were ever enrolled as students at the university, according to school records.
The trial will begin with opening statements Tuesday morning.
This story was originally published October 6, 2014 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Jury selected in trial of man charged in Coastal Carolina University’s student shooting death."