PORTLAND, Maine — Defense attorneys for a New York City man, on trial in Portland for murder, tried to pin the crime on two other people whom they say had motive and opportunity.
Christopher Jennings, one of the prosecution’s key witnesses in the Anthony Pratt murder trial, admitted Wednesday he lied to police about owning the gun that turned out to be the murder weapon, lied about being a crack cocaine dealer who sold drugs to the victim and lied about having sex with the victim, Margarita Scott.
Scott’s body was found 1½ years ago in the back of a snow-covered Chevy Trailblazer in the parking lot of the Motel 6 on Riverside Street in Portland. Police found traces of Scott’s blood in the apartment of Christopher Jennings and his wife, Tunile Jennings. Pratt and Scott also lived in that apartment.
Prosecutors allege Pratt shot and killed Scott in the apartment. Under cross-examination, Christopher Jennings testified he only told the truth when police confronted him with the facts of the case, including finding the murder weapon in Jennings’ apartment.
“I told [the police] me and my wife didn’t do it,” Christopher Jennings testified. “And so, at the end of the day, there’s only one other person who could have done it.”
That someone, according to Jennings, is Anthony Pratt Jr., who was seen beating the victim the day before she went missing.
The defense argues the only DNA found on the .40-caliber pistol used to kill Scott belongs to Christopher and Tunile Jennings, not Pratt. And even though Pratt was romantically involved with the victim, the defense says Christopher Jennings was the last person to have had sex with the victim.
Tunile Jennings is scheduled take the stand Thursday. She already admitted to police she threatened to kill Margarita Scott if she found out Scott was having sex with her husband, which she was. The defense has presented Christopher Jennings as an alternate murder suspect.