Guilty verdict in case of CCU student’s death
Marquis McDonald denied killing Coastal Carolina University sophomore Anthony Liddell Jr., after jurors convicted him Thursday of murder and armed robbery in the 2013 shooting outside a campus housing complex.
Just before Circuit Court Judge R. Markley Dennis sentenced the 22-year-old Conway man to 45 years in prison for murder and 30 years for armed robbery in Liddell’s shooting — sentences which will run concurrently — McDonald denied his involvement.
“I’m sorry for the family for what they went through. I hope they reach mercy on me and forgive me and know the truth I didn’t do it,” McDonald said as his final statement of the trial that began with jury selection on Monday. The jury heard nearly three days of testimony in the case and convicted McDonald after deliberating about two and a half hours.
Liddell’s family declined to comment about the trial.
Earlier on Thursday, McDonald testified that he went with his cousin, Stephon Mclain, on Feb. 26, 2013, to buy marijuana from Liddell in the parking lot of University Place Apartments off S.C. 544 on CCU’s campus. The 19-year-old CCU student from Bennettsville got into the back seat of the vehicle, McDonald testified.
Mclain and Liddell began to argue about the price and quality of the marijuana Liddell had brought to sell the men that night.
“[Liddell] said `it smoked real good. I sell it to my friends for $30 a gram,’” McDonald said and added that Mclain told Liddell the price was too high. “He was arguing about the weed, how Ant was coming off about the weed.”
“It escalated out of hand for no reason,” McDonald testified. “Because he felt like Anthony was trying to act hard or something he wasn’t because he was selling weed at a high price. . . . [Liddell] was very confident in his weed, which you should be if you are going to sell marijuana.”
McDonald told jurors he saw Mclain shoot Liddell once before they struggle with the gun. After the first gunshot, McDonald said he had jumped out of the car and Liddell was standing outside of the vehicle, but had reached in to struggle with Mclain in the front passenger seat over the gun.
McDonald heard two more gunshots and he got back into the vehicle and sped away, leaving his cellphone and cigarettes, which had fallen to the ground when he got out of the car.
When asked why McDonald drove away as Liddell stumbled in the parking lot after being shot, McDonald said, “[Liddell] walked away from the car.”
“I’m thinking if someone gets shot, the first thing they do is drop.”
McDonald told police a different version about what occurred that night, police testified earlier in the week.
McDonald said in a written statement to police that Mclain, who he knew as “Black,” had come with Liddell and McDonald punched him to get him out of the car after all three men struggled with the gun, which went off.
McDonald’s attorney, Greg McCollum, told jurors that the evidence shows the gunshots came from the front passenger seat where Mclain was and not from McDonald, who was standing outside the vehicle.
“Marquis McDonald didn’t do it. He couldn’t do it unless you repeal the law of physics,” McCollum said during his closing arguments. “It’s terrible what happened. I’m not blaming [Liddell] because he was doing stuff he shouldn’t have been doing.”
“I don’t approve of that because it’s illegal. I don’t approve of Marquis McDonald and ‘Black’ [Mclain] doing that because it’s illegal,” McCollum said. “I’m not saying Anthony Liddell caused any of this. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. Marquis McDonald was at the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing.”
Brad Richardson, a senior 15th Circuit solicitor prosecuting the case, told jurors that McDonald pulled the trigger of that gun because the trajectory of the bullets found in a door of a nearby SUV showed the men were pressed against it when the shooting occurred.
“The man lied to you. The police didn’t believe his lies that night on 2013, don’t believe him today,” Richardson said. “The choice [McDonald] made that night was that Anthony Liddell’s life was less than $350 of weed so I’ve got to put him down. And he did that.”
After the verdict, Richardson said jurors saw through the lies told by McDonald and made the right decision.
“Anthony certainly didn’t deserve to die. He wasn’t a big time drug dealer,” Richardson said. “He made some mistakes but it certainly didn’t warrant what happened to him.”
Richardson said Mclain would be prosecuted later, but he could not be sure when.
This story was originally published October 9, 2014 at 7:45 PM.