CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (KDVR) — The prosecution rested Thursday in the trial for STEM School Highlands Ranch shooter Devon Erickson, with jurors shown dramatic hallway surveillance video from the moment of the shooting and Erickson’s interview with police.
On Thursday, jurors were shown dramatic video of students running after shots were fired outside room 107 at STEM School Highlands Ranch on May 7, 2019.
In the video, students were standing right outside of classroom No. 107, where Erickson is accused of shooting and killing Kendrick Castillo and wounding several other classmates.
Prosecutors played a video of a police interview with Erickson just a few hours after the shooting, where the teenager was captured on video crying uncontrollably as he talked to investigators.
Erickson gave details about a plan he said was made with co-defendant Alec McKinney, who he said forced him to participate.
“If I tried to get any other kind of help, he would kill me. Multiple times he kept threatening me,” Erickson said during the interview.
Erickson then detailed the moment Castillo tried to stop the attack but was instead killed.
“I said, ‘Everybody, just don’t move,’ and that’s when Kendrick and Brendan both rushed me,” Erickson told police.
The jury watched several minutes of surveillance video tracing the steps Erickson and McKinney took from the moment they entered the high school that day.
Prosecutors painted a picture of a well-planned attack that Erickson willingly participated in and did nothing to stop it.
Defense attorneys argued that Erickson acted under the control of a manipulative co-defendant, McKinney, who has already pleaded guilty.
Their first witness was a physiology professor called to explain how the shots Erickson fired could have been involuntary.
The big question now is whether Erickson will testify.
A judge told Erickson he will need to decide at some point whether to testify, and she asked him if he understood that the question is coming. Erickson said he understood, but it’s unclear whether there are plans for him to do so.
Trial will continue Friday.
You can watch a live stream of the trial Friday on FOX31 NOW.