Eyewitnesses questioned in day 6 of Manny Ellis murder trial

A number of eyewitnesses took the stand, in Tacoma on Wednesday, during the sixth day in the murder trial of Manuel Ellis.

We have been covering this trial since the beginning:

• Opening statements were given on October 3.
• Ellis’ sister testified on Oct. 6.
• Ellis’ mother testified on Oct. 9.

Several of the witnesses provided investigators with videos. Attorneys broke them down frame by frame last week.

On Tuesday, the questioning did hit a bit of a snag when it was delayed for about 45 minutes after one of the witnesses had his competency questioned on the stand.

“This is just an observation, I’m just questioning, you’re jittery and appear uneasy did you take anything or smoke anything today before you came to court?” asked the prosecutor.

“No,” said the witness.

“Okay. And so you’re not under the influence of kind of a drug, controlled substance, drug, alcohol?” asked the prosecutor.

“No,” he said.

“Great,” said the prosecutor.

The witness has admitted to using substances in the past, even on the night of Ellis’ death.

Another woman who took the stand watched the interaction between Ellis and the officers and even took a video. Prosecutors called her credibility into question following messages she sent on Facebook - which she said was a typo.

“It says you’re going to lie when you get on the stand,” said the prosecutor.

“Right,” said the witness.

“That’s what you put down,” said the prosecutor.

“That’s what it says, yes, that’s what I wrote,” she said.

“And do you have any evidence whatsoever that you corrected this typo?” asked the prosecutor.

“I don’t know,” she said.

The defense said the witness’ videos don’t show how the deadly encounter began and claimed Ellis was violent towards officers before the cameras started rolling. That was contradicted by a witness who said it appeared the two were just talking before the confrontation.

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