It took an Alamance County jury 27 minutes late Tuesday afternoon to deliver a verdict of not guilty following the final two days of testimony and closing arguments in the trial of Garyonded Stepney, who was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Alonso Beltran Lara, 18, Hispanic, male, at a trailer park at 1051 Wyatt Road in Green Level in April 2021.
In addition to Lara, Barney Dale Harris, 39, black, male, of Monroe, a teacher and basketball coach at Union Academy Charter School, was also killed during what investigators had described at the time as a “shootout” between rival cartels. Investigators alleged that Harris and Steven Alexander Stewart, Jr., 37, black, male, formerly of 304 Old Lilesville Road, Wadesboro, had conspired with Stepney to rob the trailer of drugs and money. A forensic chemist with the State Crime Lab testified last week that a Ziploc bag containing white powder collected at the scene had contained 1,017 grams (approximately a kilo) of cocaine.
Deputies arrived to find Harris dead on a bed inside the trailer where the shooting occurred just before 1:00 a.m. on April 8, 2021. Harris sustained 10 gunshot wounds that came from an “intermediate distance,” ranging from a couple of inches to a few feet, based on testimony that jurors heard last week from the chief medical examiner who autopsied Harris’ body.
Lara had been zip-tied by his hands and feet before he was shot execution-style in the back of the head; he later died at a nearby hospital. Alamance County chief assistant district attorney Alex Bass argued that Lara had returned home shortly before 1:00 a.m. on April 8, interrupting the attempted robbery, before he was killed.
Stepney, 46, maintained his innocence throughout the trial. Last year, he refused a plea deal with the district attorney’s office, according to his court file, which gives no specifics about the plea offered. He was arrested in Greensboro on July 19, 2021 and charged with first-degree murder in Lara’s death.
From the outset of the trial up until his closing argument, Stepney’s defense attorney, Don Carter of Greensboro, argued that there was “zero evidence” to put Stepney at the scene of the crime. Nor was there any evidence of his alleged involvement in the plot to rob the trailer, or any involvement of a cartel, Carter contended.
Stewart was initially charged with first-degree murder in connection with Harris’ death; his charges were later reduced to second-degree murder in exchange for pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against Stepney and a reduced sentence.
Harris’ accomplice: ‘I need you to back me’
Harris’ accomplice testified last week that he really didn’t know what Harris had planned to do when he accompanied him to Green Level the night of April 8, 2021. Stewart said Harris had come to his house to borrow a car that night, and they drove to a Quality Inn & Suites in Greensboro, where Harris had reserved a room for the night, before traveling along I-85/40 to a truck stop, where they picked up Stepney and drove to the trailer park along Wyatt Road.
According to Stewart’s testimony, Stepney gave Harris directions, and once they arrived at Lara’s trailer, Harris told Stewart, “I need you to back me. I’ve got some business to handle.”
Harris was wearing a bulletproof vest, along with an earpiece, and handed Stewart a bulletproof vest from a backpack and a gun from his holster, Stewart testified. Stepney met him and Harris at the back of Lara’s trailer and handed a gun to Harris, who then handed a second gun to Stewart. After a vehicle pulled up to the trailer, he looked around a corner and saw Stepney and Harris firing on a man, at which point Stewart said he ran, throwing off his bulletproof vest, the guns, and gloves into the woods, before calling his wife to come pick him up.
Santana Stewart was charged in March 2022 with felony obstructing justice and with being an accessory after the fact to first-degree murder for picking her husband up at the scene; those charges were dismissed as part of the plea agreement with her husband, according to her court file.
The prosecution said that GPS trackers had been installed on Lara’s car so that Harris and his accomplices could monitor his whereabouts immediately prior to the robbery. The defense countered that Stepney and Harris owned a moving company, and the trackers might’ve been used on their moving trucks.
‘Black voice’
Former Alamance County detective Bernard Kilmer testified Monday that investigators found two recordings of Harris surveilling the area of James Boswell Road on January 31, 2021. Asked during cross-examination by Carter to read his report aloud, Kilmer stated, “It sounded as if there were two other black males inside the vehicle with [Harris].”
“As I am speaking to you now, do you consider me to be speaking in a black voice?” Carter, who is black, pressed Kilmer. “Is there anything distinctively black in my voice?”
Kilmer acknowledged that the video never showed the other individuals but said it sounded as if there were two other black males in the vehicle with Harris, but said he’d made that assumption due to “the gruffness or the deep tone of the voices.”
Carter also pointed out that, while Kilmer testified that he had “plotted accurately” Harris’ movements the night of April 8, the path of travel differed from what the state’s key witness, Stewart, had described on the stand last week.
Prior to closing arguments Tuesday afternoon, Alamance County superior court judge C. Douglas Green agreed, over the defense’s objection, to instruct the jury on the “felony murder rule,” as well as a theory of acting in concert, at the prosecution’s request.
Under the felony murder theory, the jury was asked to weigh the evidence and testimony to determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, whether Stepney had committed first-degree murder while perpetrating a felony – kidnapping (because Lara had been restrained with zip-ties) and attempting to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. Green also agreed to instruct the jury on another theory of “acting in concert,” based on the prosecution’s argument that Stepney had joined together with Harris and Stewart to rob the trailer and a murder occurred as a consequence.
The judge also agreed to instruct jurors that Stepney’s decision not to testify created no presumption of guilt; nor was it to influence their decision about his guilt or innocence, which the defense attorney had requested.
‘The third man’
During his 40-minute closing argument, Bass likened the plot to rob the trailer in Green Level to a 1949 movie starring Orson Welles, The Third Man, in which the protagonist sets out to find out who murdered his friend, and what role the “third man” played in the death.
“This is the story of the third man here in Alamance County in 2021,” Bass told jurors Tuesday afternoon. Harris was the first man and has been held accountable: “He paid with his life,” Bass said. Stewart is the second man, “the muscle,” who also has been held accountable by his decision to plead guilty to second-degree murder and “to help the state” bring the third man to justice.
Bass also likened Stepney to a “wheel man” who agrees to wait in the getaway car while two other men go in to rob a bank; during the robbery, a guard is shot dead. “It doesn’t matter who did the killing; if three people join together, they are all liable,” Bass told the jury. “What [Stepney did] was join together with two men that resulted in the death of this man [Lara].”
“Why should we care?” Bass asked rhetorically before reminding jurors that Lara and Harris were human beings, no matter what kind of bad acts they were caught up in. “There are 33 reasons why you should care,” he said, as he held up an aerial map of the trailer park. “[There were] 33 homes in that community; 33 families were put at risk by this.
“That is why you should look at this very carefully. You decide who the third man is, and did he join in this” plan to rob a house full of drugs belonging to someone else, Bass said. “If you can get your dope for free and sell it, that’s a pretty good business model,” he said later. “These targets were chosen specifically because they weren’t going to report a robbery,” Bass concluded before walking jurors through a timeline of the events.
“For whatever reason, Harris had fallen in with his good friend, Mr. Stepney, whom he’d known since grade school,” Bass said, recalling that Harris had been a teacher and viewed as a man of “good repute” in his community.
The day prior to the murder, Stepney texted Harris, asking him to call him, and the call lasted nine minutes, based on printouts of text messages that Bass read from Tuesday afternoon. At 8:09 p.m. the night of April 8, Harris messaged to Stepney, “OTW,” meaning he was on the way, he said. Shortly before the shooting began at 12:52 a.m., there was a 27-minute call between Harris and Stepney because they were “using their phone as a walkie-talkie,” Bass told the jury.
“Again, why should we care?” the prosecutor asked. “In this case not only did you have [Harris] murdered but you also had [Lara, who] was grabbed, hog-tied and helpless, zip-tied. His life ended on the floor of that trailer.”
‘Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty’
Carter, for his part, reminded jurors of what he’d said during his opening statement: there was no DNA; there no fingerprints; and no other evidence to connect Stepney to the robbery, kidnapping, or murder.
“The first words you heard out of my mouth were not guilty: when I told you the state has brought the case against Mr. Stepney for first-degree murder,” Carter said at the start of his 55-minute closing argument. “The second time you heard me say it was during opening, when I told you this case was about what they don’t have, or choose not to share. The third time was when the D.A. told you what could’ve happened if he’s found guilty. Whether he’s black, white, Hispanic, or Asian, if he’s found guilty, he serves life in prison.
“”This happened 43 days short of being five years [from the date of the crime] – five years they’ve had to prepare,” Carter said, telling jurors that the D.A.’s office chose not to try the case when the lead investigator, who is in the military and deployed overseas, was available. “Where is the lead investigator?” he asked. “What could she have told you about what happened?”
“You should be very concerned about the presentation of their evidence. Where did you get your information? Recall the information I had to pull out [such as the fact that the GPS tracker found at Harris’ apartment in Jamestown included DNA from Stepney and two other people],” Carter said. “That tracker that’s at the scene doesn’t have Mr. Stepney’s DNA on it.”
“You should be very concerned that the state didn’t show the video that they say showed Mr. Harris [surveilling] the lot where he ended up being killed.” Carter asked. “…The video in Mr. Harris’ phone didn’t show anybody, but there were voices that led him to believe there were black males in the car.”
While jurors heard a deputy’s testimony about and saw pictures of spent shell casings found at the scene, no ballistics expert was called to corroborate that account.
The defense attorney reminded jurors that the last witnesses they heard on Monday said Stepney has pending charges for trafficking drugs in other counties. “He hasn’t been convicted,” Carter said. “There’s nothing about robbery; nothing about kidnapping; no guns – nothing about him with [respect to] violence. What does that have to do with this horrific tragedy that occurred in that mobile home?”
“It’s a distraction. Now we have to peel back the onion and what is revealed. Mr. Stewart is their main guy; he put Mr. Stepney at the scene. What did he testify to? Barney Harris picks him up in Wadesboro; they ride for two hours.” Stewart claimed to have no idea what was going to happen, pointing out that Stewart’s account of where they stopped on the way to Green Level “directly contradicts” that of Kilmer, Carter said, adding, “That’s not all of the problems with Mr. Stewart’s story.”
It wasn’t until they arrived at the back of Lara’s trailer that Stewart claimed he began to figure out what was going on and fled after Lara arrived. “He told you Barney told him, ‘I got something I need to take care of.’”
“Where are the witnesses, and where is the evidence? This really should concern you, what you don’t have, who you didn’t hear from – what you really need to be fully satisfied [beyond a reasonable doubt]. Essential witnesses: detective Tomey, the lead investigator, you didn’t get to hear her. Lara’s cousin, [911] caller number four, you didn’t get to hear her. Santana Stewart, you didn’t get to hear her.
“This is 2026 – you can’t go anywhere without a camera seeing you. No cameras, nothing to corroborate. What is here to corroborate Mr. Stepney was ever in that trailer…You’ve got nothing that ties Mr. Stepney to a murder. If they were there for a robbery, they are the worst robbers – they left the cocaine. All of this is reasonable doubt.”
Jurors retired to the jury room to begin deliberations at 4:11 p.m. Tuesday afternoon and returned a verdict of not guilty 27 minutes later.
Read story about courtroom closure and publisher’s objection: https://alamancenews.com/alamance-news-publisher-protests-judges-courtroom-closure-during-murder-trial/
Read newspaper’s editorial views on the unprecedented courtroom closure: https://alamancenews.com/secret-justice-undermines-public-confidence-in-judicial-system/
