Scissors were used to kill FIU athlete, witness says

As the scrum unfolded outside the Florida International University recreation center, accused killer Quentin Wyche broke away, hustling back to the building, witnesses told police.

“Then he kind of stopped in front of where I was and took out like — took his backpack off and took out a pair of scissors from the backpack,” witness Chidinma Orj told Miami-Dade police in newly released court documents.  Wyche, she told police, tried frantically to break apart the eight-inch scissors. “He was just saying stuff like, I’m a get him” she recalled.

He ran back toward unarmed FIU running back Kendall Berry, she said. Moments later, Berry fell to the ground, mortally wounded from a stabbing to the chest.  Her account was among a slew of witness statements released Friday in the second-degree murder case against Wyche, 22, accused of slaying the popular tailback on March 25.

`JUSTIFIABLE’

Wyche’s defense attorney, David Peckins, stressed he believe the incident was “justifiable” and that Berry initiated the violence, “continuing the fight even up to the point he was stabbed.”  Peckins said, eventually, he will question Orj, a student, in a deposition.

“We will be going into a lot more detail about what she saw and heard so that we can compare it to other witnesses’ testimony, which so far is inconsistent with what she said,” Peckins said.  Berry’s slaying shocked FIU’s West Miami-Dade Campus.  Wyche, briefly a teammate of Berry’s, was an FIU student.

The tension began earlier that day when Wyche got into an argument with Berry’s girlfriend, Regina Johnson, who works for a campus golf cart shuttle service system known as the Panther Safety Tram.

“Regina told Kendall that `Q’ had mushed a cookie in her face and was like `eat the cookie, bitch, because she wouldn’t give him a ride,” Marquis Rolle, one of Berry’s friends, remembered her saying.

The two traded words. Wyche threatened to have his sister beat her up. Johnson hit him with a key chain and threatened to call her boyfriend, remembered football player Antwoin Bell, who witnessed the argument.

KNOCK ON WINDOW

Johnson told Berry, 22, about the incident. After an afternoon football practice, Berry went to the recreation center, where Wyche was playing an intramural basketball game with his team, nicknamed “The Best of the Best.”

Berry knocked on a window to summon Wyche.  “He was kind of like pissed, looked pissed, and he’s got his fists balled up. He was just waiting for somebody,” football player Toronto Smith II told police.  Wyche went outside the building with his pal, Anthony Cooper. Wyche and Berry “squared up” and began to circle each other as football players gathered.

Exactly what happened next is unclear. Berry’s pals said Cooper moved in to sucker punch Berry. Cooper, in his statement, said he was trying to find out what was going on when he was “pushed to the side” and then “they attacked me.”

A brawl broke out. Wyche, witnesses said, broke away toward the building. Several witnesses said Berry ran after him.

That’s when Wyche pulled the scissors, Orj told police. The two scuffled again, although the exact timeline — and whether Wyche could have escaped and not reengaged Berry — will likely be an issue brought up at trial.

`DON’T STAB HIM’

“That’s when I like ran to try and break them up, because `Q’ had something in his hand,” Bell told police. “I see KB like falling, like he’s injured or something, and then when I see him like that, `Q, don’t stab him! Don’t stab him!’ ”

Berry crumpled to the ground, mortally wounded with one stab wound to the torso.  “That’s what he gets. . . . I told ya’ll,” Wyche hollered, according to an arrest warrant.  Wyche fled, and turned himself in to police the next day.