I did that, said US teenager after ‘shooting two British tourists dead’

Marvin Gaines, 19, buried shell casings and a gun in his backyard for Shawn Tyson because he was trying to help his friend out.

Tyson, 17, is accused of killing James Kouzaris, 24, and James Cooper, 25, who were shot dead after they drunkenly walked into a public housing estate known as The Courts in the early hours of April 16 last year.

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

Tyson, 17, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.

Mr Gaines told the court today that he saw Tyson on April 16, when he confessed to the killings.

“He pulled me to the side. He asked me did I hear what happened.

“I told him no.”

Mr Gaines said Tyson asked him: “You didn’t hear about them people getting killed back there?”

When he said no, Tyson, then 16, said: “Oh bra, I did that.”

Mr Gaines said that in Tyson’s brother’s bedroom inside his house, Tyson gave him shell casings that were hidden in a suitcase.

“He gave them to me and told me to bury them,” he told the court.

“I asked him ‘Do you want me to bury them or throw them away?’ He told me to bury them.”

Mr Gaines said he buried the seven shell casings in his backyard to help his friend.

He said: “I was just trying to help him out because he made a big mistake. He had made a mistake, he shouldn’t have did it.”

Mr Gaines told the court that later that day Tyson called him and told him he had hidden a gun under his house.

He said his friend said: “Bra, I put the gun under your house.”

Mr Gaines found the gun and then buried it too because, he said, Tyson told him to.

He later dug up the weapon, a 0.22 calibre revolver, and gave it to Joshua Bane.

Mr Gaines told the court he had seen Tyson with that gun “once or twice” before he found it hidden under his house.

The court has heard Mr Cooper, from Hampton Lucy, Warwick, was shot four times, while Mr Kouzaris, from Northampton, were shot twice in the back.

Mr Gaines said today that in his first interview with detectives he did not say anything about what he knew because he was scared.

But the court heard he was later warned he could be charged as an accessory to murder.

He later told police about the shell casings and led them to where they were buried.

Mr Gaines is facing a charge of possession of marijuana, the court heard.

The court heard that Mr Gaines repeatedly told police he knew nothing about the murders.

He was told by detectives that it would be better to be on the side of the Sarasota Police Department than Tyson’s, and was told: “You don’t want to be sitting on the defence table with Shawn, do you?”

In a second statement, Mr Gaines told officers what he knew.

The court heard he was later told he had to “tell the truth” or he could be charged as an accessory or tampering with evidence.

Earlier today, Rosemary Jassoy, a firearms examiner from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), said she had examined two bullets recovered from the body of Mr Kouzaris, and one badly-damaged bullet from Mr Cooper.

She also examined the seven shell casings and confirmed all, as well as the bullets, were 0.22 calibre size.

She confirmed all seven casings were fired by the same gun, but also told the court there was no way of knowing if the bullets came from the casings.

Yesterday the court heard that one of the victims cried for his life as his friend was shot, then was gunned down himself.

Latrece Washington, 18, told the court that Tyson told her he tried to rob Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper but when they did not have any money, he shot one first, then the other.

Ms Washington said Tyson said to her on April 16 that he told the men that, as they did not have any money, he had “something for your ass”.

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

“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 ass’.

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

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

He said that on April 7 - the day Tyson was arrested - he saw him shoot at a car, and on the same day threaten to shoot at two girls in a car.

He said he saw Tyson after the murder, and the teenager lifted up his shirt to reveal the pistol and a red bandana.

He allegedly said “Clap clap clap”, a phrase from a film, and Mr Bane said it meant: “It’s a shootout, somebody gets shot.”

Mr Bane told the court that Mr Gaines gave the gun to him to clean and sell, and he and Tyson’s brother Nate Wilson later sold the gun for 50 dollars (£31) and spent the money on marijuana.

The murder weapon has never been recovered.

Bane’s brother Jermaine, 21, said he received several phone calls from Tyson before and after the shootings.

Before the shooting, he heard Tyson on the phone say “Who are those crackers (white people) walking past the park?” but did not think he meant to call him.

Later that day, when police arrived to search Tyson’s house, he said he saw Tyson throw something into a friend’s car.

Jermaine originally told police he did not know anything about what had happened because he did not want “the image of being a snitch”, he said.

The court heard that a charge of carrying a concealed weapon was reduced in seriousness in exchange for giving evidence in the Tyson trial.