The man accused of shooting a Lincoln man in February 2021, and leaving him to die in a failed plot to rob him of 4 pounds of marijuana took the stand at his trial Thursday and told the jury he was being framed.
Deontae Rush, a 27-year-old from Omaha charged with first-degree murder, said when he learned he was a suspect — a couple of days after James Shekie’s body was discovered in his mobile home near North 20th and Superior streets — he “got out of Dodge.â€
“I had nothing to do with this. I was scared,†he said.
Defense attorney Jeff Pickens asked why he didn’t just turn himself in.
Police had said he was armed and dangerous, Rush said, and he was worried they would shoot him if they came into contact with him.
“I didn’t want to be one of them statistics,†he said.
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Rush said at the time of the killing, early Feb. 23, 2021, just before 4:30 a.m., he was in Omaha, dealing with his girlfriend, who was mad at him after finding sex videos of him with other women on his phone.
Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Eric Miller contends it happened after he got back to Omaha.
To explain why his cell phone was pinging off towers in Lincoln near Shekie’s home at the time of the killing, Rush said he’d accidentally left his iPhone in Marques Moten’s van about a week earlier. He denied being the one using it early that morning, texting about the robbery.
He said the morning of Feb. 24, he found the phone in his yard.
Pickens asked him point blank: “Did you shoot Mr. Shekie?â€
“No,†Rush answered.
Miller asked Rush if he was the person in the black hoodie on a security video at a Lincoln apartment with Anna Feilen and Marques Moten shortly before the killing.
Feilen and Moten both testified it was him, and that he was the one who went into Shekie’s trailer with a gun. They said they heard gunshots soon after, then a scream and drove off, picking up Rush soon after at a nearby FedEx when he called Moten.
“I’m testifying that they’re outright lying,†Rush said.
In closing arguments, Miller said Rush was scared by Shekie after going in the trailer, fired a wild shot, then a second at a doorway before walking in and shooting Shekie on his bed with his back to the wall.
Miller said phone records and social media conversations back up what siblings Feilen and Moten said, but there was nothing to corroborate what Rush said on the stand.
“He just says it,†the prosecutor said.
Rush said he sold the Jordan 6 shoes, like the ones he’d worn in a Facebook photo shortly before the killing. The same kind of shoe that left a print on Shekie’s door when it was kicked in.
Rush said someone else was using his Facebook account when Feilen did a controlled contact with the police listening.
He tried to explain away calling them rats and said texts about messing up and facing prison time right after Shekie’s murder were about the domestic assault, not the killing.
Pickens said the case is simple. For the jury to find Rush guilty, they have to believe Feilen and Moten beyond a reasonable doubt.
“I suppose the issue for you folks is: Is this third person Mr. Rush, or is it somebody else? If you think the third person is Mr. Rush you’re obviously going to find him guilty. But there is a reasonable doubt about who is the third person,†he said.
In his rebuttal, Miller said Feilen and Moten did lie about some things.
“But they weren’t lying about this,†he said. “And they weren’t lying when they pointed to Mr. Rush and said he is the one that went into Mr. Shekie’s trailer, shot him and killed him. They aren’t lying about that.â€
The jury got the case for deliberation shortly after 5 p.m. They are set to return Monday.