'It was the most horrible thing'

CAMBRIDGE -- His suit was dark, his tie smoothly knotted. His voice was clipped and confident, until the moment when Alexander Pring-Wilson stepped down from the witness box, crouched on one knee, curled his arms around his skull, and tried to persuade jurors that he is not a murderer.

In the dramatic climax of Pring-Wilson's testimony in his first-degree murder trial, the former Harvard graduate student acted out the street fight that ended when he stabbed Michael Colono, an 18-year-old cook from Cambridgeport, five times. During the fight, Pring-Wilson said, he reflexively curled up, as Colono and another man pummeled him.

''I was just trying to cover up my head; that's what you do in rugby," Pring-Wilson said in a packed courtroom during the third week of his trial on a first-degree murder charge, which has played out against a backdrop of class tensions in Cambridge.

Jurors were rapt as Pring-Wilson, the son of two lawyers, took the stand in Middlesex Superior Court yesterday to describe his version of the April 2003 fight outside a Cambridge pizza shop. Pring-Wilson, who was working on a master's degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard, did not dispute that he took out his knife and jabbed at the man he said was punching him again and again.

But Pring-Wilson repeatedly told jurors that he believed he had no choice. He pulled out his knife, he said, when he feared the men might beat him to death. He said he could remember the blade of the knife gleaming in the dark.

Colono died after his friends got lost driving him to the hospital. ''You happened to get a lucky shot to [Colono's] heart," said Adrienne Lynch, the assistant district attorney who aggressively cross-examined Pring-Wilson.

''I wouldn't call it lucky," Pring-Wilson said, his voice pitched high. ''It was the most horrible thing."

Colono's mother, two sisters, and other relatives sat in the front row listening closely to Pring-Wilson's testimony. Colono's mother kept her eyes averted as the defendant spoke, staring at the carpet. As soon as the man who killed their son left the stand, the three women were ushered out of the courtroom by a victims' advocate.

During his 2-hour testimony, Pring-Wilson laid out, in rapid-fire delivery, the events that ended with Colono's death. He had been walking home, he said, from a night spent drinking and listening to music with two female friends.

He was talking on his cellphone as he walked by the car where Colono sat with his cousin and his cousin's girlfriend in a car, waiting to pick up a pizza. As they signaled that they wanted to talk with him, he said, he stopped near the car. But the interaction soon turned ugly.

Pring-Wilson said Colono hurled a derogatory term at him. He later admitted during cross-examination that he responded with an expletive. ''That was a horrible mistake in retrospect," Pring-Wilson said.

Immediately, Pring-Wilson said, a man jumped out of the car and punched him in the nose, repeatedly hitting him in the head. A second person also began punching and kicking him, he said, and he found himself on the ground. Colono's cousin, Samuel E. Rodriguez, testified earlier that Pring-Wilson had turned the confrontation into a fight by yanking open their car door.

''I was thinking, 'What's going to stop these guys,' " Pring-Wilson testified yesterday. ''Are you going to know to stop before I'm dead? Are they going to stop when I'm unconscious?"

Pring-Wilson pulled out his knife, he said, when he realized there was no stopping his attackers. He was conscious that his knife made contact, he said, but didn't know how many times or what damage he had done. The two men ran to their car and drove away. Based on Pring-Wilson's phone log -- he called 911 as soon as the men left, he said, fearing they might return with guns or knives -- prosecutors say the fight lasted one minute and 10 seconds.

Pring-Wilson testified that he has only a ''fleeting memory" of how he got home after the stabbing and after he was interviewed by Cambridge police at the scene. He said he walked aimlessly, ended up in what he thinks was Kendall Square, and then got a taxi ride home to his apartment.

He also testified that he did not remember leaving a message on a friend's voice mail shortly after the fight, in which he admitted having stabbed someone, contradicting his direct testimony that he had no idea Colono had been injured during the fracas.

''I've listened to the tape," he told Lynch. ''I know it's me, but I'm sorry, I don't remember making that phone call."

But moments later, he then told jurors what he was thinking about as he made the telephone call, prompting Lynch to fire off a question drenched in sarcasm: ''So, you don't remember it, but that's what you were thinking, is that right?"

''Yes," he replied.

A second dramatic moment in yesterday's testimony came when Lynch quizzed Pring-Wilson on his state of mind as he removed his knife from his back pocket.

''You pulled out a knife, and you put them in their place, right?" Lynch asked.

''They definitely put me in my place, on the ground," Pring-Wilson said. ''And I was just trying to get away."

''Mr. Colono died, didn't he?" Lynch asked.

''Yes, he did," Pring-Wilson said, his voice quavering.

''And you put him in his place, didn't you?" Lynch said.

Pring-Wilson choked up, gasping for air. ''I'm so sorry," he said, his voice fading on the last word.

Pring-Wilson acknowledged he had lied to police at the scene and later during his interview with Cambridge and State Police detectives. When he called 911 from the scene, he told police only that he had witnessed a fight. Later, he maintained that he had not been involved in the fight, saying he just wanted to put the episode behind him.

''Was that a very good idea?" Kaufman asked.

''No. I wish to God I hadn't," he said. ''I was scared. It was stupid. I wasn't thinking too clearly."

The trial is to resume this morning.

Kathleen Burge can be reached at kburge@globe.com. John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com