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Football Player Testifies at Willis-Starbuck Hearing By Jeff Shuttleworth Bay City News

Friday February 03, 2006

OAKLAND (BCN)—A University of California, Berkeley football player testified today that Dartmouth College student Meleia Willis-Starbuck was arguing with a group of men in Berkeley just before she was shot to death last July 17. 

Gary Doxy, an 18-year-old freshman from Long Beach, said Willis-Starbuck, 19, told a group of about six men at her apartment at the intersection of College Avenue and Dwight Way that they should leave, following a confrontation between the men and Willis-Starbuck and about four female friends. 

Doxy said the confrontation began after one of the other men called one of Willis-Starbuck’s friends a name. 

Doxy said Willis-Starbuck told the men, “This is my block and my street and I run this.’’ 

Doxy said that shortly after that, a shot rang out and he ran away as fast as he could. 

He said as he started running, he heard Willis-Starbuck say, “That’s my brother right there,’’ and another man also started running away. 

Doxy said he then heard three to five more shots. 

He said when he got back to his dormitory, which was nearby, someone told him he had blood on his T-shirt and he noticed a mark on his right wrist, which he assumed was from one of the gunshots. 

Doxy said he returned to the shooting scene a short while later and saw authorities attending to Willis-Starbuck, who he said was lying on the ground at the spot where he had last seen her. 

Doxy is testifying at the preliminary hearing of Christopher Hollis, a 22-year-old Hayward man and Christopher Wilson, a 20-year-old Berkeley man, who are both charged with murder in connection with Willis-Starbuck’s death. 

Authorities allege that Hollis fired the shot that killed Willis-Starbuck and that Wilson drove the getaway car. 

Hollis and Wilson are also charged with assault with a firearm in connection with the injury that Doxy sustained.