By NEAL PUTNAM | Uptown News

A man accused of killing a 71-year-old man in North Park told a jury Jan. 17 in his retrial that he stole the victim’s wallet, but he denied bludgeoning the man with a baseball bat in 2000.

Edward Jamar Brooks, now 39, said he was walking in an alley in North Park when his two companions began beating LeRay “Mac” Parkins on Aug. 23, 2000, at 8:30 a.m.

“I walked up to get between them. I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down,” said Brooks.

“I was the one who grabbed his wallet,” said Brooks, adding that Lester Bell, now 39, told him to do it.

In 2018, police tested the empty pockets of Parkins’ pants for DNA evidence, and a match was confirmed to Brooks, who was in North Carolina at the time.

Brooks said the three of them left Brooks without injury. Brooks said he and Bell went to his car, but Terrence Brown, now 38, went back to the alley behind 3675 Pershing Ave. and apparently killed him.

Bell and Brown are awaiting sentencing after they pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and robbery respectively.

The six-man, six-woman jury, five alternates, and San Diego Superior Court Judge David Gill began hearing opening statements on Jan. 13.

“Are you a peaceful man?” asked Deputy District Attorney Christina Arrollado, to which Brooks said, “Yes.”

“Is shoving a 71-year-old man to the ground peaceful?” asked Arrollado.

Brooks said Parkins was throwing punches at Brown, and he thought pushing Parkins was the best option because he was stopping the fight.

Brooks said he asked Parkins if he had money, and the man pointed to his pocket where his wallet was.

Brooks also admitted he was a gang member who previously had pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen car and evading police officers with reckless driving.

Bell and Brown testified in the first trial and said it was Brooks who killed Parkins. The prosecutor didn’t call them as witnesses in the retrial.

A mistrial was declared Oct. 31, after jurors in the first trial said they were deadlocked 9-3 for conviction of first-degree murder. Jurors said they couldn’t verify what Bell and Brown said.

Brooks’ attorney, Robert Ford, said the theft of Parkins’ wallet was his first and last robbery. Ford asked Brooks if there were people who should not be attacked or robbed.

“We’re not supposed to beat up old people, kids, pregnant women,” said Brooks, who added that Parkins should not have been attacked.

Brooks said earlier that day, he was selling crack cocaine in El Cajon where he then lived.

The prosecutor played a video of Brooks when he was first arrested in which he told police the baseball bat that killed Parkins was found in the same alley.

Brooks said in the interview he recalled pushing Parkins to the ground while the other two kicked him.

“I think he was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Brooks.

When a detective asked Brooks why the victim’s pants’ pockets were left inside out, he replied, “That’s protocol; when you rough up someone, you go through their pockets.”

Brooks said in court he joined a gang at the age of 9 or 10, some eight years after his father died when he was 2 years old.

The prosecutor also played taped recorded phone calls from jail that Brooks made to a female friend in which he said “I ain’t getting out” of jail in the murder case.

“Some guys are snitchin’ on me,” said Brooks in the phone call.

On the stand, Brooks said he did not remember accompanying Bell and Brown to a clothing store where they spent $169 with Parkins’ credit card.

Parkins lived in North Park and sang in the choir at Metropolitan Community Church when it was located on 30th Street. MCC Senior Pastor Dan Koeshall recalled, “Mac had the most beautiful Irish tenor voice.”

The murder retrial continues this week with rebuttal witnesses and closing arguments before the jury starts deliberations.

Ford has asked jurors for an acquittal and he has pleaded not guilty. Arrollado is seeking a first-degree murder conviction along with the special circumstance of murder during a robbery, which if found true could lead to a life sentence in prison without parole.

— Neal Putnam is a local court reporter.