Security guard can’t ID shooter who killed partner

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 | 9:35 a.m.

A security guard testified Monday the fatal bullets that killed his partner outside of a Las Vegas Housing Authority complex on Jan. 20, 2003, came from the same area where the 22-year-old alleged gang member accused of firing the shots was standing.

Markette Tillman is charged with murder in the shooting of 29-year-old Brian Wilcox of Henderson at the Sherman Annex Apartments in the 1700 block of H Street.

Jordan Boyd said he was patrolling the apartments on Jan. 20, 2003, with Wilcox when the pair came across Tillman and three other men who had been regularly cited for trespassing at the property.

Boyd said neither he nor Wilcox ever pulled their weapons during the confrontation, and decided to leave the scene to notify additional guards and rode off on their bicycles. He said as they drove off, Wilcox got on his radio to call the main security for backup. Boyd said he drove up to Wilcox so he could hear the radio call, but two shots rang out.

He said the two shots hit Wilcox, causing him to "cry out and arch his back."

Boyd said three or four more gunshots rang out and he ducked as a "zipping noise" went over his head. He said he never saw who fired the shots but said it sounded like they came from where "Tillman and the three others were standing."

He couldn't, however, identify Tillman as being the shooter nor could he say whether Tillman or the three men with him had a gun.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Vicki Monroe asked Boyd if he had any problems with Tillman prior to the night of the shooting and Boyd recalled two such incidents.

Roughly two to three months before Wilcox's death, Boyd said he and other guards were escorting Tillman off the property when Tillman turned and said "he was tired of us white guys tying to kick him off the property."

Boyd said a week before the shooting while he and other guards were trying to remove Tillman and others from the property Tillman said "he has guns too, 'and we're not afraid to use them.' "

Tillman's attorney, Bret Whipple, has said Tillman was not the shooter and the evidence would show it was actually one of the other three men with Tillman.

The gun used to kill Wilcox was never recovered.

The prosecution is expected to continue its case this afternoon.