ELYRIA — A jailhouse informant told jurors Friday that Neil Simpson described to him in detail the robbery that left Granny D’s Pizza owner David Kowalczyk dead nearly three years ago.

Jose Louis Rivera also told jurors that he tried to keep his cooperation with investigators quiet because he feared retaliation for being a “snitch.”

“They get hurt,” he said when asked by Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Tony Cillo what happens to snitches in jail.

Rivera, who said he received nothing for helping police, was one of the final witnesses presented by prosecutors before they rested their case Friday.

Simpson — who has maintained that he had nothing to do with the June 23, 2007, robbery or a string of other robberies that month in Lorain — may take the stand when the trial resumes Tuesday, said defense attorney David Doughten.

Simpson’s lawyers have suggested that Scotty Parker, Simpson’s admitted getaway driver, was the robber who killed Kowalczyk. Parker testified earlier in the trial that he agreed to testify against Simpson in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence.

Kowalczyk’s girlfriend, Theresa Davis, who was standing a few feet away from Kowalczyk when he was shot once in the head in the pizzeria’s kitchen, also has identified Simpson as the robber based on his distinctive “ghetto limp.”

Davis and her friend Alison Hornak, who also was in Granny D’s when Kowalczyk was killed, have said that Simpson walked in, hopped the counter, came into the kitchen area and shot Kowalczyk in the head.

They fled into the pizzeria’s back room and hid behind a pop machine while they called 911. Prosecutors have said that Simpson took money from a cash register and fled the scene.

Simpson was arrested the next day in Elyria, Lorain police Detective Steyven Curry testified Friday.

He said Simpson called him a few hours after the shooting to ask why police were looking for him. Curry also said Simpson told him he could get out of the country without being caught.

Curry said even though “she was a wreck basically,” Davis managed to give them Simpson’s name as a possible suspect.

Also Friday, Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Mark Betleski rejected a motion from defense attorneys to dismiss the charges against Simpson.

A third man, Richar D. Perry, still is awaiting trial on charges for his role in the robberies.

Simpson could be sentenced to death if convicted.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or braddicken@live.com.

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