Shortly before a man was gunned down June 12 in broad daylight at an auto parts store near University Avenue in St. Paul, Daryl Negel Curtis — wearing a red T-shirt at the time — picked up some charcoal and lighter fluid from a nearby Walmart. Later that night, he showed up at a family barbecue wearing the same bright garment.
Sometime in between, Curtis walked up to Renaldo Terez McDaniel and shot him three times execution-style while the 31-year-old was looking under the hood of a car at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts, according to Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Tom Hatch.
Witnesses to the killing, including two store employees and one of McDaniel’s relatives, all told police they saw a man running north in a red T-shirt after the shooting.
Hatch laid out the alleged sequence of events during opening arguments in Curtis’ trial, which began Friday morning after four days of jury selection.
Curtis, 28, is charged with one count of premeditated first-degree murder and another count of intentional second-degree murder in McDaniel’s death.
He was released from prison in 2014 after serving time for killing another man in 2000, about a half mile from where McDaniel was slain.
The red T-shirt will be one of several key pieces of evidence prosecutors will use to prove Curtis was McDaniel’s killer, Hatch told the jury.
The defense plans to try to poke holes in that evidence and argue that police prematurely zeroed in on Curtis as the culprit.
“Renaldo McDaniel was not a saint, but he was loved by his family, and especially by his cousin… who was five years younger than him… He made her laugh,” Hatch said during his opening remarks.
The father of seven was with that cousin June 12 when they noticed they had a broken brake light and opted to stop at O’Reilly’s on Lexington Parkway to fix it about 8 p.m., Hatch said. It was quiet in the parking lot that summer night as McDaniel was checking a fuse under the car’s hood with his cousin standing beside him.
Suddenly, shots rang out, Hatch said.
Startled and scared, McDaniel’s cousin took off running. She returned once she turned around and saw her cousin laying on the ground.
“(She) went back to the car and found her cousin… motionless, blood all around… He was dead,” Hatch said.
When interviewed by police, McDaniel’s cousin and both of the store employees working at O’Reilly’s that night all described seeing a man run away from the scene wearing a red shirt. Two of the three described the individual as a light-skinned black man with a muscular build, Hatch said.
Video surveillance captured at Walmart shows Curtis wearing a red T-shirt that day, Hatch said. Video captured from a daycare near the auto parts store reportedly shows a man wearing a red shirt getting out of a maroon SUV and reaching into the car to grab something before walking toward O’Reilly’s.
The Walmart footage shows Curtis arriving and leaving in a maroon SUV, Hatch said.
That video surveillance, plus text messages, forensic evidence, Curtis’ familiar relationship with one of McDaniel’s rivals, and key testimony provided by Curtis’ former girlfriend will be used to make the case against him, Hatch said.
Curtis’ girlfriend, Tameka Rae Smithson, was with him the day of the shooting and eventually provided an account of what happened to police, starting with the trip to Walmart, the stop near O’Reilly’s, and their eventual arrival at the barbecue, Hatch said.
Smithson pleaded guilty in September of aiding an offender for her role in the crime and is scheduled for sentencing in January.
Also in the maroon SUV with Smithson and Curtis that day was Antionette Rie Johnson, Curtis’ cousin’s girlfriend.
Curtis and Johnson reportedly suspected that McDaniel was involved in a recent nonfatal shooting of Johnson’s boyfriend, who was in prison June 12.
When they saw him at O’Reilly’s that evening, they saw an opportunity for revenge, Hatch said.
Johnson was also charged with first- and second-degree murder in the case. Her trial is expected to start in February.
Smithson told police it was Johnson who gave Curtis the gun used in the slaying. She was also driving the maroon SUV that dropped him off near the scene and picked him up after, Hatch said.
“Tameka Smithson will tell you that Antionette Johnson seemed happy (after the shooting) and that they (all then) went to the barbecue,” Hatch told the jury. “She will also say how at the barbecue (Curtis) left and came back and was no longer wearing the red shirt.”
Curtis’ defense attorney, Carole Finneran, spent less time Friday laying out the case she intends to make to exonerate her client.
“This case is about the wrong place at the wrong time,” Finneran told jurors.
She went on to say that as soon as police heard about the victim’s connection to Curtis’ cousin and saw his proximity to the crime scene from the Walmart footage, he became their primary suspect.
“There was tunnel vision and no one else was considered,” Finneran said.
She asked jurors to carefully scrutinize the testimony of witnesses, particularly that of Smithson, who had previously been charged with second-degree murder in the crime and, she suggested, had reason to twist the narrative.
She also suggested that while Curtis’ cousin may have had a motive to kill McDaniel, Curtis did not. And the forensic evidence, including DNA collected from a red shirt as well as fingerprints — is weak, Finneran said.
“None of it points to (Curtis),” she said.
Finneran said there is another person who police should have investigated in the killing.
Sitting in black slacks and a white dress shirt, Curtis had his hands folded on the table in front of him during much of the opening arguments.
Family and friends of both Curtis and McDaniel were in attendance.