Moser did not go to the scene but continued his work until he was called by a patrol officer who arrived at Choices, also known as Club NXT, and found a patron of the club, Willie Solomon of Altoona, had been shot and critically wounded. The officer wanted to know if Moser, familiar with a variety of street names, knew the suspected shooter.
At the after-hours club, the regulars only knew the suspect, who had fled, as “Juice.”
“I knew who Juice was,” Moser testified before a Blair County jury Wednesday.
Juice, he said, was James Raphael Santos.
Moser knew Santos had a girlfriend on the 300 block of the city’s Juniata section, and surveillance officers were sent to the home to see if the suspect was there or if he would show up.
When he didn’t arrive, Moser became actively involved in the case, and his involvement led to the arrest of Santos, who was being driven from the Altoona area by a friend, Brandon Midder.
To the surprise of everyone, including Moser, when Santos was taken into custody, records showed his name really was Hugo Baez, then 20.
Baez is on trial for murder because Solomon died on the way to UPMC Altoona.
The prosecution is asking that the jury find Baez guilty of first- or second-degree murder. The defense is asking the jury to consider that Baez acted in self-defense or consider less serious offenses of homicide.
The testimony Wednesday focused on Moser’s entry into the case and his actions to quickly track the man he knew as Santos, and a heartfelt description of Solomon’s death by Moser’s partner that night, Cpl. Nathan Snyder, who rode in the ambulance with an AMED crew attempting to save Solomon’s life.
Snyder was among the first officers to arrive at Choices.
He helped place Solomon, who witnesses said was still alive but in great pain, in the ambulance.
The officer accompanied the medics in an effort to help them, handing them whatever they needed to continue their treatment.
As the ambulance traveled from Choices, Snyder said: “It seemed to me he (Solomon) was struggling for his life. I reached down and held his hand.”
As the ambulance began its climb over the Seventh Street Bridge, “He let go of my hand. … That was it,” Snyder said.
Efforts to revive Solomon at the hospital were unsuccessful, he told the jury.
Moser, meanwhile, had called some of his sources and obtained a cellphone number for the man he knew as Santos.
Because of his work, Moser had the authority to request a “ping,” or the right to utilize the area’s communications towers to locate a cellphone.
He ran the number he had obtained, and it showed the cellphone was in the Tyrone area. Moser then teamed up with Snyder and received permission to go there.
As the two officers in an unmarked police surveillance vehicle entered Tyrone from I-99, they noticed a vehicle moving toward them. Moser recognized that vehicle. It was owned by Brandon Midder, Baez’s friend. He recognized Midder as the driver, and another person was slouched in the passenger seat. Moser and Snyder followed Midder at a distance. They had been informed Midder was at Choices that night.
The officers also received cellphone pictures of the suspected shooter, taken from a Choices club videotape, and Moser was able to identify him as the passenger.
With the help of state police from Huntingdon, the Midder car was stopped, allegedly for not have proper lighting over the license plate.
As the two Altoona officers stood near the stopped car, they heard Baez identify himself to the state troopers as James Santos. At that point, both Midder and Baez were taken into custody.
Prosecutors, Blair County First Assistant District Attorney Jackie Bernard and Assistant District Attorney Peter Weeks, have charged that Baez and Solomon’s brother, Jacob Dormevil, had words at Choices about 11:30 p.m. Halloween night, and Dormevil and Baez were on their way to the club parking lot where they were going to have a fist fight.
Baez instead drew a handgun and started to shoot at Dormevil.
It was then that Solomon, the prosecution contends, went toward Baez to protect his brother.
A forensic pathologist, Dr. Harry Kamerow, who performed the autopsy on Solomon, said Wednesday that Solomon was first shot on his left side. That bullet eventually killed him, Kamerow said, as it ripped through Solomon’s chest wall, his left lung and aorta of his heart and caused other internal injuries.
He suffered two other nonfatal shots, one through his left hip and one just above his left knee.
Baez attorney Thomas M. Dickey objected to the showing of at least one autopsy photo that he called “ghastly,” but Judge Elizabeth A. Doyle permitted its showing.
Kamerow reported that he found alcohol, marijuana and an illicit drug, methylone – which Dickey referred to as a bath salt – in Solomon’s blood.
The pathologist said the drugs in Solomon’s system played no part in his death.
The prosecution maintains that the substances did not affect Solomon’s actions that night, noting he was freely walking about the club, taking to people and showing them cellphone photos of his son.
The defense, which is likely to begin its presentation to the jury today, claims Dormevil and Solomon were out to “ambush” Baez that night because of the bad blood between them.
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