Testimony begins in Valentine's Day murder trial

Kim Ivery recalled that it was after 1 a.m. on Feb. 13, 2011, when Shaun Warrick knocked on the door of her house on Rutland Street in Frankford.

Warrick handed over some bags of clothing that belonged to Ivery's 19-year-old niece, Tiffany Burnhill, who was visiting Ivery's daughter Mercedes, 22, that weekend, Ivery testified Thursday in the first day of Warrick's first-degree murder trial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

Warrick identified himself to Ivery as Burnhill's boyfriend, and added that she had refused to take his calls over two days.

Ivery said she told Warrick that the cousins had gone away overnight, and he replied: "Valentine's Day is coming up. I'm going to do something nice for her."

Fifteen hours later, Tiffany Burnhill and Mercedes Ivery were dead, each shot repeatedly and left to die in upstairs bedrooms in the Rutland Street house.

Prosecutors said Warrick, 32, broke into the house in the 5400 block of Rutland, enraged because Burnhill no longer wanted to date him, and killed the cousins.

For Warrick, the stakes are as high as they get. Assistant District Attorney Thomas Lipscomb has said he will seek the death penalty.

Lipscomb told the jury of six men and six women in his opening statement that a chain of circumstantial evidence would link Warrick to the shootings, culminating in the statements of two women who accompanied Warrick to the home and waited outside as he broke in.

Alicia Watkins, 31, testified that she heard gunshots, and then Warrick walked out of the house. The three got in his car and drove away.

The other woman, Octavia Dugger, 25, testified that she did not hear any shots but that both she and Watkins agreed that Warrick told them, "You don't need to talk to the police about this."

Defense attorney Jack McMahon told the jury in his opening that there was no physical evidence linking Warrick to the killings, that no gun was recovered, and that no one saw Warrick with a gun, or saw him shooting Burnhill and Ivery.

McMahon said there is evidence of another, unidentified man in the house with Warrick at the time of the killings.

"Who is that male? Is he the shooter? We don't know," McMahon told the jury.

McMahon also noted that Watkins and Dugger did not talk about what happened until a month after the killings, when detectives tracked them down.

Questioning the women Thursday, McMahon cited their criminal records and said their testimony was not credible. McMahon acted astounded at Dugger's testimony that neither Watkins, whom she called her "best friend," nor Warrick said a word to each other about why they were driving to Rutland Street or asked Warrick what happened as they drove away.

"It wasn't my business," testified Dugger, who said she was also preoccupied by a nosebleed.

Warrick was arrested March 17, 2011, when he was found hiding in a house in Hunting Park.

Warrick had prior run-ins with the law. In 2007, he was acquitted of attempted murder in the shootings of two Maryland college students and the stabbing of a third.

That incident at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore briefly got Warrick featured on the America's Most Wanted TV program.