ELYRIA – A witness who told jurors earlier this week that Alverno Howse Jr. wasn’t at the Taft Avenue home where Charles “Chuckie” Howard Jr. was shot in August returned to the stand Friday and changed his testimony.

The witness, whose name Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Mark Betleski ordered the media not to report, said that Howse was in the bedroom where Howard was shot.

“Are you telling the jury now that Alverno Howse was there?” Assistant County Prosecutor Mike Kinlin asked the witness.

“Yes,” the man replied.

The man’s testimony on Friday was a return to what he had initially told police and grand jurors before Howse was charged with reckless homicide in the death of Howard.

The witness said he had been intimidated to lie on the stand earlier in the trial. He cited several calls from restricted phone numbers to his cell phone before the trial started as part of that intimidation. When he answered the calls, he said, no one was on the other end.

“I was scared,” the witness said.

The witness was one of three people to take the stand Friday whom Betleski ordered the media not to identify. The Chronicle-Telegram is not identifying them in this story because of concerns for their safety.

Betleski also cleared the courtroom of spectators, citing security concerns and alleged intimidation of witnesses in the case by members of the Middle Avenue Zone, an Elyria gang Howse is reputedly affiliated with.

On Thursday, a member of Howard’s family got into a shouting match in the hallway with Jeris Nelson, another reputed member of the M.A. Zone, as the gang is commonly known. Nelson and the woman chest bumped each other during the altercation, according to county sheriff’s deputies, but neither was charged.

Nelson also allegedly told the woman, “We rule these streets.”

Earlier in the trial, Nelson told jurors that Howse wasn’t with Howard when the shooting took place. He had told police and grand jurors that the two friends were alone together when Howard was shot.

The informant testified Friday that Howse had confided in him after the pair met in the Lorain County Jail last year.

The informant, who received a reduced sentence in an unrelated burglary case for his cooperation in the Howse investigation, said Howse quizzed him about whether he could be charged with murder in Howard’s death.

“Yeah, I got a reward and all this in and out, but I still got a heart,” said the informant, who is no longer being held at the county jail and whom prosecutors have told to move out of the state after he completes his prison sentence.

Kinlin told Betleski that another defendant being held in a holding cell at the county Justice Center had threatened the informant just before he was brought to the courtroom to testify.

Howse, the informant said, told him that he was talking to Howard about some people he had “a beef with” when the cocked gun he was holding went off and Howard was shot.

Howse also told him that he had disposed of the gun in the accidental shooting, the informant said. He also said Howse was relieved when he was indicted on the reckless homicide charge in December.

Defense attorney Mike Camera pointed out that the informant has an extensive criminal record of burglary and robbery charges, which the informant attributed to his painkiller addiction. The informant also said that he had served as an informant as far back as 1997.

The third witness, who police had to track down and bring to the county Justice Center on Friday, told jurors that she had trouble remembering the events of the day because it was “traumatic.”

She quibbled with Kinlin as he went over her grand jury testimony in which she said she had seen a gun near Howse before the shooting and that he had been with Howard when he was shot. She also had told grand jurors that Howse told those in the house after the shooting not to call police.

During her testimony on Thursday and Friday, the woman said she couldn’t recall whether or not Howse was there when Howard was shot before finally agreeing that he was.

“Are you positive Al was there that day?” Kinlin asked.

“Yes,” the woman replied.

The trial is set to resume Tuesday under tight security that has already led to friends and family of both Howse and Howard being barred from the Justice Center.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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