Conflicting testimony given in slaying trial

Bill Gang

Tuesday, July 20, 1999 | 10:51 a.m.

A North Las Vegas woman testified that gunfire wasn't unusual around the Cheyenne Condominiums where she lived.

But on Nov. 14, 1996, Deborah Pence said she was in position to see Brian Keith Robinson gun down 17-year-old Germaine McKines in the middle of a street after a brief verbal exchange over his refusal to voice allegiance to a particular rap group.

Pence testified in Chief District Judge Lee Gates' courtroom that she saw Robinson's pistol pointed at McKines, the flash from the barrel and the victim stumble backward "like if you trip over your own feet."

There were three additional shots fired before Robinson fled and McKines had long since crumbled dead to the pavement, she told Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent.

But under questioning by defense attorney Peter Christiansen Jr., the reluctant witness, who had to be urged to testify under threat of arrest, admitted she could not say that the fatal bullets actually were fired by Robinson.

She also said she couldn't remember telling police shortly after the murder that she had seen Robinson standing over the fallen victim firing additional bullets.

Robinson's involvement was corroborated by Lynn McGuire, who lived a short distance from the murder scene in the condominium complex at 3301 Civic Center Drive.

McGuire said that after hearing the shots she saw the gunman turn toward her and recognized him as Robinson, her neighbor who lived in the apartment directly above her.

She testified she assumed Robinson, who goes by the street name B-Mac, was the shooter "because there was no one else out there."

If the jury convicts Robinson of first-degree murder, the same jury will have to decide if he should be sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole or given the death sentence.

Robinson already has been convicted of murder for his role in an earlier death and has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In addition to charges in the McKines murder, Robinson also is alleged to have killed two other men in separate incidents over a three-month period in late 1996, but he has yet to stand trial in those cases.