WALL TRIAL: Eyewitness describes sex-extortion scheme details that led up to fatal shooting

Jul. 14—WEATHERFORD — The sole survivor of a deadly encounter described, in district court Thursday, the extortion business that led her and her two dead friends to the man that shot them.

Murder defendant Christopher Mark Wall is standing trial in the fatal shootings of 23-year-old Ashley "Mercedes" Pohorence and Krista "Red" McClellan, 21, in a Willow Park bank parking lot on Nov. 4, 2017. He faces automatic life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of the dual murders.

The sole survivor of the encounter, witness Sierra McMahan, testified Thursday the two women had got inside Wall's red compact car after summoning him there for a cash payment to continue their silence about him trying to solicit sex from them.

Wall already had paid them about $8,000, after bringing them to his office at a Fort Worth hospital, but this payment was for their continued silence, according to testimony.

"Red got out of the car, and he came around and shot her," witness Sierra McMahan told Wall's seven-man, five-woman jury Thursday. "And then he came around and shot her (Pohorence)."

McMahan, 28, testified Thursday morning she had met Pohorence through Facebook while deciding to leave the small Panhandle town of Borger where she'd had an abusive upbringing and dropped out of school in eighth grade. Pohorence's online postings showed a lavish lifestyle of travel, high-end shopping and generous stacks of $100 bills.

She told Parker County District Attorney Jeff Swain she had arrived at the Arlington home the two women shared with Pohorence's boyfriend, Byron "Payday" Johnson, four months before the deadly encounter.

McMahan said she readily joined an enterprise in which the women could be found on the now-defunct sexual classifieds publication, Backpage.

The periodical was infamous for it's "Women Seeking Men" section, where men would find prostitutes — typically victims of sexual trafficking.

But the trio of young women did not trade sex for money, McMahan said. Instead, they coaxed the man they met into specifying why he'd summoned them.

"We asked him what he wanted," McMahan recalled the encounter with Wall. "He said he wanted to do things, and we said, 'What kind of things?' And he solicited us. ... He got naked."

Demanding the "massage customer's" full name before agreeing to meet, McMahan said they would dive into his social media accounts to learn his family, job and other personal information.

Having already accepted $250 or $400 for the "massage," the request for sex would set off fake outrage as the women claimed they were 17 (mistakenly citing the youngest age of consent). They would begin naming his wife, occupation, anything they'd gleaned that would pry additional payments, according to her testimony.

McMahan said they worked 20 to 50 of the extortion scams daily in seven-day work weeks, called trick rolling.

"We would take them to the banks, we would take them to the ATM," she said, adding if they had insufficient bank accounts they'd make the man use credit cards for electronics at Walmart, which they would return later.

She described the trio's protocol of maintaining communication from the outside while one or two of them entered motel rooms with their marks.

"Sometimes, just one (of us) would go in and the other one would wait for them," she said, describing quick, "in," and, "out" texts to report progress. A "knock" call would interrupt the proceedings if they began to veer out of hand, she said, and the "follow" woman would respond.

McMahan said the women never carried weapons.

She agreed with defense attorney Andrew Deegan that they'd found "the perfect crime." She also said the trio would come to Weatherford and Parker County at times.

McMahan denied ever learning Wall's Weatherford address — where he lived with his parents, wife and daughter — and that the women had threatened to kidnap Wall's daughter and traffic her, contradicting Deegan's opening statement claim Tuesday.

McMahan Thursday also testified she had not seen the women try to pull Wall from his car, only them leaping out before being gunned down.

Deegan produced messages in which McMahan deferred operation decisions to Pohorence's boyfriend and the owner of their Arlington home, Johnson.

McMahan said Johnson was not part of the extortion enterprise and was starting a trucking business of some sort.

"So, it's time to stop lying, Sierra," Deegan said. "These are messages you sent. ... You gave the money to Payday every night."

"No, I didn't," she replied, saying again that Pohorence was in charge and gathered the nightly hauls from the others.

After the shootings, McMahan said she'd gone to a convenience store across the road and called Johnson. She said she planned to call 911 as well.

A couple using the bank's drive-through ATM had reported the gruesome crime scene they'd encountered. McMahan returned minutes after calling Johnson.

"Payday told you to clean up the crime scene, didn't he?" Deegan asked.

"No, he did not," McMahan answered.

Testimony before 43rd District Judge Craig Towson is set to resume at 9 a.m. Friday.