In murder-for-hire trial, woman described surviving barrage of gunfire into her SUV

On a winter afternoon in 2021, three shooters fired 21 times into an SUV parked outside a Westwood apartment complex.

Three people were inside the vehicle, including a man prosecutors say the shooters had been hired to kill. That man was seriously injured but survived. Instead, a man who prosecutors said was "in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people," 27-year-old Deontray Otis, was killed.

Otis's girlfriend, who was sitting next to him in the front passenger seat, gave a harrowing account of what happened during testimony in the murder trial of a man prosecutors say hired the three shooters. Among them was a 14-year-old boy. And according to testimony, he used a gun that had an extended magazine.

On Thursday, a jury in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court will begin deliberations to decide whether they believe 23-year-old Carl Godfrey orchestrated that shooting and whether he was involved in another fatal shooting two days later. Godfrey faces more than a dozen counts, including aggravated murder, felonious assault and gun charges.

His attorneys say he wasn't at the scene of either incident and that the prosecution's case is based entirely on speculation.

At times during the trial, including on Wednesday during closing arguments, Godfrey has worn a face mask with "Not Guilty" printed in large letters across the front.

Woman in SUV survived barrage of gunfire

The killing of Otis happened shortly before 4 p.m. on Feb. 16, 2021, outside an apartment complex on Westwood Northern Boulevard. Snow covered the ground.

Prosecutors say Godfrey directed both the shooters and the intended target to that location. They say he had been hired to kill the man.

The woman who survived the shooting said the man in the back seat – she knew him only as "Shiest" – was being told where to go and was relaying that information to Otis, her boyfriend.

As they waited for the person they were supposed to meet, she said three people wearing masks (at least two were wearing ski masks) walked past the car. She barely took notice.

“Because it was cold out, I wasn’t thinking too much of it,” she said.

Soon after, she heard gunshots. Bullets ripped into the vehicle.

The woman heard Otis say he had been hit. The man in the back seat said he’d been hit.

She tried to crouch down in her seat. Although a bullet went through her right side, she didn’t initially feel anything.

'Oh God, why?'

When the shooting stopped, she opened the SUV’s door and ran to a nearby apartment.

Someone let her inside. She was given a towel to cover her wounds. The woman called her mother, then her grandmother. A police officer’s bodycam captured some of that scene.

“Granny, we just got (expletive) shot… I don’t know if he’s dead… I had to get out of the car and run,” she said.

“Oh God, why?”

Witness admits being one of the shooters

Of the three accused shooters, one has pleaded guilty. Jason Gray Jr., who was 18 at the time, is serving 37 to 41 years in prison.

The 14-year-old, Mikeem Thomas, is now 17 and is being prosecuted as an adult.

Mario Gordon, 33, has admitted being one of the three and testified as a witness for the prosecution. During closing arguments, one of Godfrey's attorneys, James Bogen, called him a "career snitch" and "career opportunist" who was trying to score a lesser sentence.

Gordon described himself as someone who makes money by robbing people, mostly drug dealers.

“That’s my hustle,” he said.

According to Gordon, on Feb. 16, 2021, Godfrey reached out to him through a girlfriend. Gordon said he thought it was supposed to be a robbery.

Gordon said he was picked up the same day in a “bootleg cab" that also ultimately picked up Gray and Thomas.

The three were taken to the Westwood apartment complex, where according to Gordon's testimony, the three opened fire on the SUV with Otis, the woman and "Shiest" inside.

Gordon said he began firing only after Gray started.

When asked why, Gordon said, "I didn't want to be the oddball who wasn't shooting."

Gordon said he emptied the clip of his gun.

Second fatal shooting

Prosecutors say that the next day on Feb. 17, Godfrey, himself, was the target of a shooting.

He then sought revenge the following day, on Feb. 18, 2021, walking into the Millvale neighborhood, prosecutors said, and indiscriminately opening fire, using an assault-style rifle.

Donnell Steele was walking to his car in the street, prosecutors said, when he was shot in the head and fell face-first to the pavement.

During closing arguments, prosecutors said Godfrey video-recorded himself walking to Millvale. In one video, they said, he held up a magazine that had ammunition for an assault-style rifle.

The same caliber of bullet was found at the scene.

"I don't have a soul," Godfrey said at one point in a message, according to prosecutors. "I'm ready to stain it some more."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Jury to begin deliberations in Carl Godfrey murder-for-hire trial