Michael Allen was 9 years old on July 21, 1969, when he asked his mother three times whether he could join her on a trip to the grocery store.
“Just wait here,” Allen testified Thursday that his mother told him. “It won’t take long. I’ll be right back.”
Standing on the porch of his aunt’s house in this southern Pennsylvania factory town, he watched as his mother climbed into the back seat of a white Cadillac with her parents, younger sister and brother-in-law. It was the last time he saw Lillie Belle Allen alive.
Michael Allen, now 41 and living in North Augusta, S.C., was the last of 52 witnesses to testify for prosecutors in the murder trial of former Mayor Charlie Robertson, Robert Messersmith and Gregory Neff.
Prosecutors wrapped up their case Thursday afternoon–33 years after Lillie Belle Allen was gunned down at a railroad crossing after her family strayed into a volatile white neighborhood during race riots and nearly three years after the long-dormant case was reopened.
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York County Judge John Uhler denied defense attorneys’ motions Thursday afternoon to dismiss murder charges and acquit the three white men.
Messersmith, 53, former leader of the Newberry Street Boys gang, is accused of firing the fatal shot. Robertson, 68, a police officer in 1969, is accused of supplying ammunition and encouragement to gang members. Neff, 54, former leader of the rival Girarders gang, admitted to a grand jury in November 2000 that he fired three shots at Allen’s car.
Most of Thursday’s testimony came from Rodney George, a detective with the York County District Attorney’s Office and the case’s lead investigator.
George and his team interviewed more than 400 people beginning March 3, 2000–including every living York police officer who was on the job in July 1969–traveling to more than a dozen states.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys grilled George on his investigation, from how he came to speak with certain witnesses to how many people police interviewed during a two- to three-month investigation in 1969.
Attorneys for Robertson began presenting their case late Thursday afternoon, calling to the witness stand the 87-year-old retired Pennsylvania State Police captain assigned to York during the riots and a former York patrolman who was in an armored police vehicle with Robertson the night Allen was killed.
Both said they had not seen Robertson distribute any bullets to gang members.