About 12 hours after being called to investigate the killing of an Ansonia drug investigation’s chief target outside a Derby bar, Detective Sgt. John Netto sat across from the sole suspect in the shooting and tried, again and again, to level with him.
“If I could draw a target, it’s on you. Tag, you’re it. Your life changed last night, and I can’t say it’s for the better,” Netto told Cordaryl Silva, then 24.
Silva reclined in his chair across a small table from the police supervisor in an interview room at the Ansonia police station.
“I have a dead guy in Derby and everybody’s telling me you did it,” Netto said.
Video of Netto’s interview was played for a jury on the second day of Silva’s murder trial at Superior Court in Milford Wednesday.
During the interview, Silva conceded he was at the bar that night, but despite more than an hour of the detective sergeant’s attempts to pry more out of him, admitted little else.
“I’m just going to wait and play it out and see what happens,” Silva told Netto. “The truth will come out.”
Though it’s unclear whether Silva will take the stand in his defense later this week, jurors Wednesday heard from Silva in his own words nonetheless — via the interview and several Facebook posts authored by Silva in the weeks leading up to the May 12, 2012 shooting of Javon Zimmerman, 22.
Netto was on the stand for most of Wednesday, and will resume testifying Thursday morning. The trial’s second day began with autopsy-related testimony from a medical examiner, as well as two men who said Silva confessed to the killing while in lockup.
Testimony in the trial began Tuesday.
‘I’ll Fight It’
In a video of Silva’s interview with Netto and state police Detective Fran Budwitz, Silva admits he had a feud with the Zimmermans but denied pulling the trigger despite being told repeatedly that several people had implicated him.
“If it was really me and they say it was me, put that shit on paper … and I’ll fight it,” Silva told Netto and Budwitz at one point.
“They are. They are putting it on paper,” Netto shot back. “You’re caught with your hand in the cookie jar and I’m just trying to find out how your hand got in there.”
At times Netto offered sympathy to Silva in an effort to get him to open up, saying the Zimmerman crew were known to be connected to a multitude of violence incidents and “terrorized“ the lower Naugatuck Valley.
At the time of the shooting, Zimmerman was the subject of a police investigation in which Silva was being used to provide information, a fact first reported by the Valley Independent Sentinel nearly two years ago and reiterated by Netto on the stand Wednesday.
Silva was allegedly angry with Zimmerman because he had not been supporting Silva’s brother, who is serving a prison sentence in connection with the 2009 ambush shooting of a man in Derby police believe was connected to the Zimmerman drug dealing organization.
“It’s understandable to be afraid of these dudes,” Netto told Silva at one point, later adding that even cops tense up when encountering a member of the crew on the street.
During the interrogation, Silva spent more than an hour saying that plenty of people had beefs with Zimmerman’s group and evading questions about what happened in the moments before and after the shooting.
“I think you did what you had to do to get out of there alive, and I don’t know why you’re not telling me,” Netto said toward the end of the interview.
“You’re pulling a Houdini to get to the bar and you’re pulling a Houdini to leave the bar,” Netto said at one point when Silva refused to provide a name for the person who drove him from the bar after shots rang out.
Silva told police that he didn’t want to involve others because of the crew’s reach.
“They had all the weight, they had all the good connects,” Silva said when describing how his brother became involved with the group, before he said they “turned their back” on him. “They had guns … They got money. They got lawyers.”
At one point, Silva told cops that he blamed members of the Zimmerman crew for the 2009 killing of Bernice McFadden at the Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive, saying the bullets were intended for his brother.
“They tried to smoke my brother,” Silva said. “Why wouldn’t they try to smoke me?”
Motive By Facebook?
Wednesday’s testimony also featured Netto and Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Charles Stango reviewing several Facebook posts they say explained Silva’s motive for the crime — the Zimmerman crew’s alleged disrespect for his brother.
The posts — which were subsequently deleted or made private — featured vague, profanity-laced promises of revenge in the weeks leading up to the shooting.
In one Silva laments that both of his brothers had been locked up on the Zimmermans’ behalf, but the posts didn’t feature any specific threats of violence against Zimmerman, though he did mention a fight the two allegedly had at a gas station a couple weeks prior.
Netto said the posts showed that Silva was growing increasingly frustrated and desperate.
“I am done with this shit,” one said. “Everybody got a breaking point and I’m at mine.”
Silva’s lawyer, Lawrence Hopkins, tried to get most of the posts excluded from evidence, arguing they were irrelevant and prejudicial to his client, but was overruled by Judge Markle.
Autopsy Evidence
Earlier Wednesday, Stango called Dr. Ira Kanfer, a medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Zimmerman, to the stand.
Kanfer said Zimmerman was shot twice: one bullet entered his left leg above the knee and continued into his right leg, and another entered his upper left back and traveled downward into his chest, hitting Zimmerman’s heart, liver, and lungs.
Kanfer said Zimmerman would have died from the wounds within “a minute, tops.”
Under questioning from Stango, the doctor said the wounds were consistent with the shooter being “elevated” from the victim, as authorities believe Silva was while standing in the uphill driveway of RJ’s when Zimmerman was killed.
The medical examiner was followed on the witness stand by two men who said Silva admitted to the shooting while behind bars after being charged with the crime.
‘I Killed The Guy At RJ’s’
The first, Carl Hatton, said he encountered Silva in the lockup at Superior Court in Derby the afternoon of Silva’s arraignment on the murder charge.
Hatton, an Air Force veteran who said he handled radio communications for presidential flights in the 1980s, said he abused alcohol and cocaine after being discharged, and was facing robbery and larceny charges at the time.
He said while the two were chained together at the courthouse, he remarked how many people were in the gallery in the courtroom.
“They were there for me,” he said Silva told him. “I killed the guy at RJ’s.”
Hatton further testified that Silva told him he would have not been charged but for a slew of arrests made by police June 1, 2012 that he said gave authorities leverage to obtain statements implicating him in the shooting.
After Hatton, another man, Demetrius Thomas, told the jury a similar story, saying Silva admitted to shooting Zimmerman while the two were in a van being brought to court Dec. 31, 2013.
Silva’s lawyer tried to attack the credibility of both men by alleging they had gotten preferential treatment for pointing the finger at his client.
Surveillance Videos
Testimony will resume Wednesday with Netto on the stand.
Testimony ended Wednesday with the detective sergeant showing the jury surveillance videos of the area of the shooting. One showed Derby police officer John Dorosh following a person running away from the area.
Another video showed a figure stopping at a stoop on Elizabeth Street were Netto said police later found a cell phone belonging to the mother of Silva’s child.
After Netto finishes testifying, Stango said he expects to call two more police witnesses.
Depending on how long it may take Silva to present his case, Judge Markle said she may instruct the jury on deliberations by Friday.
