The capital murder trial of Michael "Buzz" Davis continued all morning and afternoon Wednesday, with plenty more to come this week and possibly into early next week.

The state called a handful of witnesses for questioning and cross-examination from defense attorney John Robbins. The victim in this case, 23-year-old Jamea Harris, was shot and killed during a gunfight between Davis and her boyfriend, Cedric Johnson. and Robbins contends that Michael Davis was acting in self-defense after Johnson fired on him first.

For those catching up, Davis, who goes by Buzz, is the lifelong friend of former Alabama basketball player Darius Miles. The two were together on the Tuscaloosa Strip with Jayden Bradley, another former Bama player, after the Tide defeated LSU in Coleman Coliseum in January 2023.

The trio celebrated at a local club, Twelve 25, before leaving when it closed after 12 a.m. on the morning of January 15th.

Cedric Johnson and Jamea Harris were also at the club with Harris' cousin, Asia Humphrey, and a trio of men from Birmingham to party that night. Johnson and Harris lived together in Birmingham, and he drove here in her Jeep. They picked up Humphrey and he testified the three other men just happened to be at the club - that there was no pre-existing plan to meet them in town.

Although there was no negative interaction between the groups in the business, Buzz reportedly attracted their attention when he was dancing in the street on the Tuscaloosa Strip outside the club.

CEDRIC JOHNSON'S TESTIMONY

Johnson testified on Wednesday, supplementing video evidence shown to the jury and testifying that although he drove Harris from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa the evening before she died, she and Humphrey went to get the Jeep after they left the club - they were cold and Johnson said he wanted to get a bite to eat at Quick Grill across the University Boulevard before they departed.

Asia was driving and Johnson said he got in the back seat of the Jeep to eat his food when the women drove up, and it was from there that he first encountered Davis.

Johnson testified that Davis approached the Jeep to interact with Harris and Humphrey, the women, and that Johnson rolled down the back window to warn him off and tell him they were "good," as in spoken for, and uninterested in talking to him.

Johnson then claimed Michael Davis approached the back window and exchanged words with him - he said he heard Davis say something along the lines of "Do you know who you're talking to? I'm Buzz and I whack people."

That's when Jamea Harris slid Cedric Johnson the gun he'd brought to Tuscaloosa - a Taurus Raging Judge revolver which is chambered to shoot either 45 Colt bullets or .410 shotshells.

The Bama basketball players, Darius Miles and Jayden Bradley, pulled Michael Davis away from the Jeep and the two groups briefly separated.

A second group of men then approached the Jeep and apparently flirted with Harris and Humphrey enough that Johnson got out of the car and stepped around the hood to get them out of there. Johnson testified the second interaction - not the first one with Davis -made him feel disrespected and mad enough to fight.

Eventually, though, he told the three men from Birmingham - Jack Thompson, Shubonte Greene and a KeeVon Johnson - that it was time to leave.

Robbins and Cedric Johnson disagreed over how things played out - the defense argues that Cedric Johnson told the men from Birmingham to get back to the Chevy Impala they drove to the club and get ready for trouble. Johnson said he just wanted to leave Tuscaloosa.

Cedric Johnson then walked back to the Jeep and got in the driver's seat, sending Asia  Humphrey to the backseat. He turned left from Grace Street - the alley between Houndstooth bar and Quick Grill - onto University Boulevard, and Robbins said he could have easily left the area, but instead Johnson turned left again and circled around to a parking lot further down Grace Street, where the Impala was parked.

Video shows Johnson get out of the Jeep and talk with the three men, then shows Jack Thompson retrieve a shotgun from the trunk of the car and get in the back seat of the Chevy with it.

Robbins argued this showed clear motive to hunt and hurt Michael Davis over the perceived slight from earlier - Johnson testified he never said anything to the other men about arming themselves, and that he didn't really know Jack Thompson as well as the other two men who were there.

Then, instead of turning down Grace Street away from the Tuscaloosa Strip, Johnson turned the Jeep around, cut the headlights and drove slowly back towards where he last encountered Michael Davis.

Again, Johnson testified he doesn't remember cutting the lights and it was probably an accident he didn't notice because there was no shortage of other light that morning. Robbins said killing the lights was the first step in a planned drive-by shooting.

Soon after, Michael Davis emerged from around a nearby building, armed with a handgun that Darius Miles had just retrieved from the car of another Alabama basketball player, Brandon Miller.

Miller drove Miles to the Strip that night, but didn't want to wait in the line at Twelve 25 and left Bradley, Miles and Davis at the club. He came back to pick up Darius Miles, but had also received a text from Miles asking him to bring the gun back to him.

The prosecution and defense disagree on who shot first. Johnson testified that Michael "Buzz" Davis fired the first round and that he returned fire with the revolver - Robbins has long maintained that Cedric Johnson fired first.

In the bedlam, Davis fires many shots from the semi-automatic gun Miles gave him, and one of those bullets reportedly struck Jamea Harris in the chin and traveled down through her neck. A forensics expert testified Wednesday that the bullet traveled through both her spine and her carotid artery and would have been almost immediately fatal.

Michael Davis was also struck twice, and video appears to show Jack Thompson get out of the Impala with a shotgun and fire at least one shell, although Johnson testified he didn't know that happened.

Johnson testified he drove the Jeep to the nearby Walk of Champions, where he only stopped because he saw a UAPD cruiser there.

The jury watched body camera footage of Johnson interacting with police, inconsoably crying "My baby mama is dead!" over and over as police try to work out medical response, crime scene control and identifying suspects.

His testimony is that he had no plans to meet anyone but Humphrey in Tuscaloosa, that running into the other three men was a coincidence, and that he had no ill will towards Michael Davis after their verbal exchange on the Strip. Johnson said he didn't tell his friends to arm themselves, didn't fire the Taurus until Davis was already shooting, and cooperated with police as soon as he encountered them.

Robbins noted several times that the jury is being asked to rely on Cedric Johnson's version of events. For instance, Johnson testified he was not a member of Birmingham's "West End Money Gang," although that contradicts 2023 testimony from Shu'Bonte Greene, who said they were in the group together. Greene cannot be called to testify during this jury trial, though - he died last year in a motorcycle crash.

Eventually, lead prosecutor Paula Whitley and Robbins ran out of questions for Johnson and he was allowed to leave the courtroom for a shift working back in Birmingham Wednesday evening.

He may be brought back to the stand - Robbins is pushing to question Johnson about whether or not he was a drug dealer at the time of the shooting. A video shot the day before the shooting shows Johnson and Harris "playing" with about $1,500 in $20s and $100s, and Robbins said police found a backpack with a "felony quantity" of marijuana in the Jeep after the shooting.

Jayden Bradley Testifies

Former Alabama basketball player Jayden Bradley also took the stand to testify - he transferred in 2023 to play for the Arizona Wildcats.

Bradley said he drove Michael Davis to Twelve 25 that night, and Miller took Miles before leaving the area. He said they had no problems with anyone inside and left when the bar closed.

He testified that when Johnson and Davis had their verbal altercation, all he heard Davis say was "Who are you talking to?" and never heard a threat of any kind. When he and Darius Miles got Michael Davis away from the Jeep, he said Miles got into Bradley'sd Dodge Challenger and they talked for a while - Buzz never got in the vehicle, but Bradley noted there wouldn't have been room for him.

He then testified that he didn't see Michael Davis again but said he was worried about where the Jeep was - then he heard gunshots and drove away from the area.

The prosecution and defense took different stances about what it meant that Davis was "worried" about the Jeep.

The jury also heard from Skylar Essex, who was and is Darius Miles' girlfriend, as well as a forensics expert from ADFS and the UAPD officer Johnson interacted with after the shooting.

The trial will continue on Thursday and possibly through the end of this week.

For more coverage from the trial as it unfolds, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.