MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - A charred piece of clothing led Memphis police to the door of a man who's now on trial for capital murder.
Dewoyne Gwynn is accused of killing Kelvin Cooper. Cooper was burned alive in the trunk of his car in December 2009.
Eyewitnesses used a garden hose to douse the flames, but he died the next day at The MED.
The charred clothes were the first tip off to the apartment, but one police officer testified it was a cell phone that helped them realize the search for their suspect was over.
In a ball of flames, after being doused in gasoline and set on fire, Cooper managed to escape the trunk of his car.
Memphis Police Officer William Carver was one of the first cops on the scene and one of the last to talk to Cooper.
"I didn't really know how to help him, he lifted his arms up skin was falling off of his arms," Carver testified.
The only way he knew to help, was to try to catch Cooper's killer.
"I told him this could possibly be the last chance he had to tell anybody what happened to him. Why did you say that? Because looking at him I didn't feel like he was going to make it."
Carver said the victim, with a black charred tongue, was able to tell him he met with a woman named Chronda at the Somerset Apartment Complex.
"He was approached by two male blacks in their late teens who robbed him at gunpoint of about $250. Once they did that, he told me they forced him into the trunk of his vehicle at gunpoint, doused him in gasoline as well as his vehicle and lit them both on fire."
Carver and his partner walked to the neighboring complex.
"We walked on the southern side of the apartment building, my partner brought to my attention a burnt piece of clothing that was laying on the back of the patio floor."
The woman who opened the door identified herself as Chronda. The apartment was leased to her boyfriend, Dewoyne Gwynn, who wasn't home.
Chronda and another man who was there, Markayle Jackson, were taken in for questioning but before they left the apartment they made a move that caught the attention of the officers.
"In the process of getting the infant's baby bag ready, a cell phone was slipped into the baby bag and i believe that was Cooper's cell phone."
Jackson recently pled guilty to Cooper's murder - he's serving life without parole.
Chronda Walker is also charged with cooper's murder - she was on the stand for most of the afternoon Wednesday. She told jurors the three of them watched from her patio as Cooper's car exploded.
The one bedroom apartment was leased to Gwynn. Walker and her new boyfriend, Markayle Jackson, also lived there.
According to Walker, the thought of a third boyfriend is what set Jackson off the edge.
"He was angry, I asked who was on the phone. I recognized the number and knew it was Kelvin Cooper," she stated.
For months she was also dating Cooper. When Jackson found out, Walker told jurors she called Cooper to come over.
"When I got out of the bathroom I was given the phone and told to get him over here."
Walker testified, Jackson and Gwynn hid in the apartment, and then Attacked cooper as he was about to leave.
"[Jackson] came around the corner, held a gun and said, 'You aren't going anywhere.'"
Cooper was tied up with Walker's scarf, doused in gasoline, then stuffed in his car's trunk. About 20 minutes after Jackson and Gwynn left with the victim, the two men came back and took Walker out to the patio.
"Looking up I saw black smoke, heard what sounded like a firecracker. Markayle said that's the tank, Dewoyne said that's the car."
Walker told the jury she cleaned Cooper's blood from the carpet, and threw papers belonging to him in the dumpster. Police also found Cooper's cell phone in her baby bag.
Thursday the jury will go view the site of the murder.
