CCU students testify during murder trial in Conway

When Amanda McTaggart went to a friend’s University Place apartment in February 2013 to watch a television episode of “Pretty Little Liars,” she never imagined she would be a witness to a murder.

On Tuesday, the former Coastal Carolina University freshman testified in the trial of Marquis Spencer McDonald, who is charged with murder and armed robbery in the Feb. 26, 2013, shooting of Anthony Darnell Liddell Jr.

“I heard a bang. I looked around and then I looked in my rear-view mirror,” the New Jersey resident said. “I saw two kids struggling against a car. ... It was very aggressive. I saw fists being thrown.”

“I heard two more gunshots go off. I’ve never seen anybody get shot. I thought the kid was going to come shoot me, too. I froze up,” McTaggart said.

After the gunshots, McTaggart said fear caused her to lose her vision, her mind went blank and it was as if she blacked out for a few seconds before she heard a dark-colored sedan speed out of the parking lot.

A young man, later identified as 19-year-old Liddell, stumbled in the parking lot outside Grand Strand E building of University Place Apartments and McTaggart got out of her car and helped him.

“He said ‘help, 911,’” McTaggart said Liddell yelled to her as she ran up to him before he collapsed. She left school the next day to return to her family and never resumed her CCU classes.

The gunshots were reported to CCU police about 7:15 p.m. that night and Liddell died about an hour later while being treated at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center for three gunshot wounds, two to the chest and one to the hip.

Jurors on Tuesday also heard a 911 call about the shooting, how the area was secured as a crime scene by CCU police before SLED agents were called and about evidence found at the scene. SLED agents testified a .40-caliber gunshot casing, a cellphone and pack of cigarettes were found next to a vehicle that had two bullet fragments found in the passenger door.

Liddell’s fingerprint also was found on the rear driver’s side passenger window of a vehicle that McDonald had been driving, testified Tiffany Hezel, a SLED fingerprint expert. She also found a shot bullet in the door of that vehicle near where Liddell’s print was found.

Janie Plyler was also a CCU freshman studying for a Spanish test when she heard the gunshots outside her apartment at University Place. From her third floor window, Plyler testified Tuesday that she saw Liddell standing at the rear of a vehicle parked in a space.

“Anthony jumped on the back truck of the car and when it turned it slung him off,” Plyler said. “He started walking to the silver car and then collapsed. ... The windows were blacked out and I couldn’t see in the car. They were trying to leave as fast as they could.”

Neither woman knew Liddell, a CCU sophomore from Bennettsville, before the shooting, they each testified.

But Liddell and McDonald, a 22-year-old Conway man, knew each other and had bought and sold marijuana in their previous dealings, said Travis Hyman, an assistant 15th Circuit solicitor told jurors during his opening statements.

“Anthony chose to use a little bit of marijuana. Anthony chose to sell a little bit of marijuana. His final, fatal chose was his involvement with Marquis McDonald,” Hyman told jurors Tuesday. “When Anthony resisted the robbery like he had a right to do, they shot him three times with a high-powered pistol.”

Another man, Stephon Mclain, 24, also remains jailed on two counts of murder without bail in Liddell’s shooting and a 2012 homicide. Mclain has waived his right to a bail hearing.

Hyman told jurors that Mclain will be prosecuted but because of legal reasons he and McDonald can not be tried together, but that McDonald was the man who shot Liddell and Mclain, who was in the vehicle at the time, “is just as guilty,” Hyman said.

“In the eyes of the law both of these men are guilty of murder,” he said. “On that Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, a little bit of weed was more important to that defendant [McDonald] than the life of sophomore Anthony Liddell Jr.”

However, McDonald’s attorney, Greg McCollum, told jurors that McDonald and Liddell had previously interacted without any trouble between them. He also told jurors to pay attention to forensics because the gunshots were fired from the passenger side of the vehicle, not where McDonald was seated in the driver’s seat.

“There’s nothing about these facts and circumstances that Marquis McDonald had any intention whatsoever to rob Anthony Liddell,” McCollum said. “The shooting came from Stephon Mclain, who is not here.”

McCollum said McDonald surrendered to police and told them that Mclain, who goes by the nickname Black, was the one who shot Liddell as the men struggled for the gun that Mclain pulled out while they were weighing the marijuana on a scale.

“Look at the facts and fairly judge the case,” McCollum said to jurors. “Wrongfully convicting one man because another young man was horribly murdered is not justice.”

Testimony resumes Wednesday in Conway.

This story was originally published October 7, 2014 at 8:30 PM with the headline "CCU students testify during murder trial in Conway."