Jemetric Nicholson had to hide in the back seat of a car being used to deliver drugs in the fall of 2006 because police were hunting for him for the killing of a Metra police officer, a state’s witness testified Thursday in Nicholson’s murder trial.
Anthony Murphy, 32, who went by the street name “Juicey,” said he was riding with Nicholson and George “GG” Guider one or two days after Officer Thomas Cook was killed on Sept. 27, 2006 while on special duty near the 147th Street Metra station in Harvey. Nicholson was slumped down in the rear seat and told Murphy that was because police were looking for him as Cook’s killer, Murphy testified.
Cook, 43, was a veteran police officer and father of two who had previously served 10 years with Riverdale police.
Nicholson, 28, is charged with first-degree murder in Cook’s death, the first Metra officer killed on duty. He’s serving consecutive sentences at Stateville Correctional Center on convictions that include attempted murder. He won’t be eligible for parole until well into the next century.
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Murphy’s testimony Thursday was part of a plea deal made with Cook County prosecutors about three weeks before the start of Nicholson’s trial. In exchange for his testimony, Murphy will be allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge in a 2012 drug case.
Murphy admitted to jurors that he had lied during part of his grand jury testimony in 2007 in which he previously talked about the Cook’s death, but his retelling Thursday of driving around with Nicholson and Guider was “the truth.”
Guider, 36, was called as a state’s witness on Wednesday and Thursday but refused to testify, prompting Circuit Court Judge Frank Zelezinski to hold him in contempt of court. Guider is imprisoned at the downstate Pinckneyville Correctional Center on a conviction for aggravated battery with a weapon.
With Guider declining to testify, prosecutors instead read in court transcribed grand jury testimony that he gave in October 2014, in which he described a shooting that Nicholson was reportedly involved in the day before he allegedly fired shots at a Harvey police officer and killed Cook.
Guider said he was giving Nicholson a ride to Calumet City on Sept. 26, 2006 when they drove past a gas station at 159th and Wood streets in Harvey, and Nicholson jumped out of the car moments before Guider heard six shots ring out, according to the transcript of Guider’s 2014 statements.
It says Nicholson later that day ditched a semiautomatic handgun that he was carrying when he returned to a house that Guider was renting in Harvey. Nicholson returned the next day to the house to recover the gun, Guider’s grand jury statement says.
Also providing testimony Thursday was former Harvey K9 officer Alex Gbur, who said Nicholson used a semiautomatic gun to fire several rounds at him during a car chase that day, Sept. 27, in which Nicholson abandoned his vehicle and fled on foot — again ditching the gun, which was recovered by police.
Later that night, Nicholson, who was with others looking to commit armed robberies, would approach Cook’s car and shoot the officer twice in the back of the head, according to prosecutors.
Nicholson could take the stand in his defense after the state rests its case. His trial is expected to continue through the middle of next week.
Nick Swedberg is a freelance reporter.