Accused ‘told friend he shot ex-Sheffield students’

Shawn Tyson, who is accused of killing Sheffield University graduates James Kouzaris, 24, and James Cooper, 25, allegedly told a friend that he had tried to rob the men but when they did not have any money, he shot one, then the other.Mr Kouzaris, from Northampton, and Mr Cooper, from Hampton Lucy, Warwick, were gunned down after they drunkenly walked into a rundown housing project known as The Courts.

They were found shirtless with their trousers round their thighs, but both still had their wallets and a small amount of money.

Tyson, 17, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Ms Washington, now 18, told the court that on April 16 last year, just hours after the killings, Tyson told her he had shot the men.

She said she saw Tyson, whom she has known for about five years, sitting on his porch on April 16, when she was with another friend. They went into the house, where he described trying to rob, then killing the men.

“He was like, ‘last night around 3am, there was two guys walking and it looked like they were going in people’s cars’.

“He said he was with somebody and they wanted to rob them.

“He said that they were going to rob them and they were drunk.

“He said, ‘well since you ain’t got no money, I got something for your a**’. That’s when he was like he shot one of them in the side and one of them fell instantly and then the other one was crying for his life, and he shot him and emptied the clip on him.”

Ms Washington said the previous night (April 15) she was staying with her cousin in the area, known by locals as The Old Projects.

She saw Tyson that night, she said, and he had a gun.

After he told her about the murders the following day, she said he had told her he had to find somewhere to hide the gun and planned to give it to friend, Marvin Gaines.

Ms Washington said Tyson told her the men had pleaded with him, saying “please let me go home”, and “I’m drunk”.

Asked by prosecutor Karen Fraivillig: “Did he say that after that, because they had no money, he had something for their a**?”, she replied yes.

She also answered yes when Ms Fraivillig asked: “Did he say that he shot the first one in the side?”, and also: “Did he say that the boy was crying ‘ouch’ and fell to the ground after he was shot?”

The court heard that Ms Washington had not been given any benefits or plea deals to encourage her to give evidence.

Joshua Bane, 25, who avoided 10 years in jail in exchange for his evidence as part of a plea deal, said he regularly saw Tyson with a gun.

He said after the murders of Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper, he saw Tyson, who lifted up his shirt to reveal the pistol and a red bandana. He told the court Tyson said: “clap clap clap”, a phrase from a film called Top Shotters, which the pair had watched several times together, and he said in the film the phrase meant: “It’s a shootout, somebody gets shot.”

Bane told the court that Marvin Gaines – whose house Tyson allegedly hid the gun under, and buried seven bullet casings in his yard – gave the gun to him and he went on to clean it up.

He and Tyson’s brother Nate Wilson later sold it to buy marijuana.

The weapon has never been recovered.