Features

A prosecutor told jurors today that they should convict Christopher Hollis of murder for firing shots that killed his close friend Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a popular Berkeley High School graduate and Dartmouth College student. 

In his opening statement in Hollis’s trial, prosecutor Elgin Lowe said Hollis acted with conscious disregard for human life when he fired multiple shots and wound up killing Willis-Starbuck, who was 19 at the time, near the intersection of College Avenue and Dwight Way in the early morning hours of July 17, 2005. 

Lowe said Hollis, a 25-year-old Hayward man, and two other men responded to her call for help after she and several women friends were confronted by several UC Berkeley football players. 

Hollis’s attorney, Greg Syren, admitted that Hollis fired the shots that took Willis-Starbuck’s life, but he told jurors that Hollis should only be convicted of manslaughter. 

Syren said Willis-Starbuck’s death was “the kind of tragedy that occurs when someone makes a rash, stupid decision while in possession of a gun.” 

Syren said the incident was “a tragedy of immeasurable perceptions and elevated this case to Shakespearean proportions.” 

He said the incident was “like a Greek tragedy played out on the streets of Berkeley.” 

Hollis attended Berkeley High School with Willis-Starbuck and the two were such close friends that they called each other “brother” and “sister.”