Trial begins in shooting of pregnant Crofton woman

The man confessed to friends last year that he tried to kill a pregnant woman in Crofton to clear a $400 drug debt with her boyfriend.

He not only told four separate people that he pulled the trigger, but divulged many details that only detectives and the shooter would have known, according to prosecutors.

But a defense attorney for Jerold Raymond Burks told a jury yesterday in county Circuit Court in Annapolis that his client is a liar who regularly makes up stories to impress his friends.

He said police have no forensic evidence linking Burks to the crime and that detectives didn't do enough to investigate another acquaintance of the boyfriend who lied to police about his whereabouts the day of the shooting.

The first of two trials surrounding the Oct. 27, 2008, attack on 27-year-old Jodi Torok began yesterday.

Charles Brandon Martin, 32, and Burks, 23, both of Charles County, are charged with attempted first-degree murder in the 3 p.m. shooting in the foyer of Torok's Crofton townhouse. Martin, the now-ex-boyfriend, is scheduled to go to trial on Nov. 30. If convicted, each faces up to life in prison.

In opening statements to a jury, prosecutors said yesterday that Martin hired Burks in October to kill Torok because she was pregnant with his child and refused to have an abortion. Martin, who is married with four children, was dating at least three women on the side and feared Torok would take him to court for child support.

For the first time, Assistant State's Attorney Crighton Chase laid out the state's official theory about how the two conspired to commit the crime.

He alleged that Martin and Burks met the morning of the shooting at the home of one of the girlfriends and constructed a homemade silencer out of a plastic Gatorade bottle and a roll of tape. Martin then drove Burks to Crofton and watched as Burks went to the door and shot Torok once in the head.

Burks confessed to four separate friends late last year that he shot Torok, according to prosecutors. He also told two of the friends that he used a homemade silencer and told one of them that Torok touched the bottle before he fired.

"Nobody knew the details of what happened (except police and the shooter)," Chase said in court, disputing any notion that Burks made up the story. "This was no joke. This was a conspiracy to commit first-degree murder."

Police did not tell the media about the silencer until March, after both Burks and Martin were arrested.

During his opening statements, Robert D. Cole Jr., Burks' defense attorney, painted his client as a nice guy who regularly makes up stories to impress his friends. He said three of the four men who heard Burk confess to shooting someone last year didn't contact police because they know he is a "storyteller," "liar" and "bragger."

Cole added that three of the confessions were vague and that most of the details Burks allegedly included when speaking to the fourth friend were garnered from newspaper articles and posts on social networking Web sites.

Cole also alleged that the friend who contacted police conducted his own investigation about what happened to Torok before calling detectives. He said the friend added further details when he recounted the alleged confession to police and even admitted when he spoke to police that he was mixing up some of the facts.

Cole stressed that the state has no forensic evidence or eyewitnesses to link his client to the crime.

"What you have is Jerry talking to his friends," he told the jury.

Cole said that another one of Martin's acquaintances, Steven Burnett, lied to police about where he was the day of the shooting. Police refuted both alibis and Burnett did not give a third, Cole said.

Martin was reincarcerated last month amid allegations that he tried to get one of the state's witnesses to change her story.

Torok - who was in a coma for three weeks after the shooting and still cannot walk - spoke publicly yesterday for the first time about her relationship with Martin, her injuries and what little she remembers about the day she was attacked.

Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a bright pink shirt and a matching pink cast on her left leg, Torok testified that she was dating Martin, but that they didn't have much of a relationship.

She didn't know he was married or that he had any children, and they communicated primarily through text messages. She also admitted that she was dating another man at the same time and that she did not know for sure who fathered her baby.

Torok, who smiled and was upbeat on the stand, told the jury she doesn't remember who shot her last October in her foyer. She only remembers shopping online for a crib that morning and waking up Nov. 16 in a Baltimore hospital.

Torok lost her unborn child while in the coma. Cole said her family and doctors decided while she was unconscious to terminate the pregnancy.