Thursday, 4:30 PM
Victim still feels pain of shooting that killed her unborn child
By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff
When the man on the MBTA subway train yelled that someone had a gun, Hawa Barry, an immigrant from Guinea, could not understand him. As passengers all around her scrambled away or ducked, Barry, then 8 months pregnant, stayed in her seat, bewildered at the chaos.
Seconds later, she heard two shots, and a bullet ripped through her stomach, striking her unborn baby boy, she told a Suffolk Superior Court jury today. Two men, Andre Green, 22, of the South End, and Chimezie Akara, 23, of Roslindale, are on trial on charges of first-degree murder in her son’s death and could face life in prison if convicted.
Today, Barry lifted her shirt before hushed jurors and displayed the scars the bullet left when it entered and exited her body on the Orange Line train on Feb. 5, 2003.
"When I saw my clothes, I see the blood," she said in Fula, a major language in her West African homeland, as an interpreter standing next to her translated. "I feel the pain."
Barry, 34, cried softly through most of her 45 minutes on the witness stand, and told the jury that she could still remember the man who shot her.
"He had an ugly face," she said in a low voice.
Assistant District Attorney David E. Meier did not ask her to identify that man in court, though she was asked to identify a photo of him that was also shown to the jury.
In his opening statements two weeks ago, Meier said that both defendants were responsible for the shooting. Both men are charged because they shared intent, said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.
"Regardless of which man pulled the trigger, we allege that the other stood by, ready, willing, and able in achieving an outcome they both desired," Wark said.
Green’s lawyer, Stephen J. Weymouth, said today that his client was not the shooter and described him as devastated by the case. Akara’s lawyer, Robert L. Sheketoff, has said that Green was the shooter.
Both men are also charged with armed assault with intent to murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition.
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.
