GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Testimony began Tuesday in the murder trial of three Grand Rapids men accused of shooting a Kentwood man during an hourslong crime spree last year.
On the night of May 24, 2022, 50-year-old Joseph Wilder went to a Huntington Bank ATM on S. Division Avenue near M-6 in Byron Township to transfer money.
“We were about to go to bed,” his wife Angela Wilder testified Tuesday. “He said he’d be right back. I went to bed and was laying in bed and time had gone by and I realized he should’ve been back by that point in time.”
Bank surveillance video shows the moments gunmen approached Joseph Wilder’s truck and shot and killed him.
“It is one of the saddest examples of being at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Kent County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Monica Janiskee said.
Prosecutors say Rhishy Manning, Jaheim Hayes-Goree and Javonte Rosa were responsible for the killing and believe Hayes-Goree, then 20, fired the fatal shot.
They say it was part of a five-hour crime spree in Kent County that involved two stolen vehicles and several stores being robbed at gunpoint. Janiskee said two of the suspects would enter stores as one waited in a getaway car.
“The last minute of Joseph Wilder’s life was one minute in a many-hour violent crime spree that these three went on together,” Janiskee said.
One of the stores that was robbed was the Family Dollar on Leonard Street NW near Seward Avenue.
“The dude standing next to the door shot towards the back and then the other one came up to me with a gun, put it to my head and asked me to open the registers and get the money out,” assistant manager Rayanne Wildeboer recalled on the stand.
Prosecutors say through surveillance videos, clothing descriptions, phone records and items found in the stolen vehicles, they were able to name the three Manning, Hayes-Goree, and Rosa as suspects.
Janiskee finished her opening statement on Tuesday with a simple message to the jury:
“I’m going to be asking you to find each and every one of them guilty as charged for all of the crimes,” Janiskee said.
All three defense attorneys reserved their right to an opening statement.
