Editor’s note: Multiple changes have been made to this article from its original version. The defendant was correctly identified by last name in some places and by first name in others; that has been corrected. Originally, a witness testified that two women took him to the office of Atlanta attorney Julius Collins. He implied they worked for Collins. In testimony on Thursday, Nov. 17, the women were identified and they do not work for Collins. That same witness described an incident with his cousin; the original version of this story identified that person as a different family member. A reference to the defendant’s age has been removed after its accuracy was questioned.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — A murder trial was delayed Wednesday morning in Colquitt County Superior Court as attorneys debated whether the jury should hear comments allegedly made by the victim in the weeks before he died.

Shvensky Collins, 25, known to his family and friends as “Tadpole,” was shot to death in the yard of a residence in the 400 block of Seventh Street Southwest around midnight May 8, 2017. Later that month, Thomas Lee Tyler, also known as “Squeeze,” was arrested. He faces charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and three counts of possession of a firearm during commission of a crime.

A jury was selected on Monday, and Tyler’s trial was scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. Instead, Judge Gregory Voyles started the day with a hearing to decide whether members of Collins’ family could tell the jury about comments they said he made to them.

Sheila Collins, the victim’s mother; Sebrena Collins Robinson, his aunt and one-time guardian; and Willie Palmore Jr., his cousin, each testified in the hearing that Collins had told them Tyler had threatened to kill him. Each said he’d been making those statements three weeks or more before his shooting.

All three said Collins never told them what caused the conflict between Tyler and him, and the lack of that context was a point raised by defense attorney Julius Collins.

Typically, rules of evidence don’t allow a witness to say what someone told them about an event they didn’t see or experience themselves; it’s called hearsay. But the law does allow an exception: When the person who did witness the event is deceased, a witness can testify to what the deceased person told them about the event if the situation meets certain other requirements. Since Shvensky Collins can’t tell jurors that Tyler had threatened him, prosecutor Ken Still argued his surviving family members should be able to say that Collins told them that Tyler had threatened him.

Voyles agreed, but the defense attorney raised a standing objection that may be grounds for an appeal, depending on how the trial turns out.

Once the hearing concluded, the jury was brought in and Voyles explained their role and how the trial would proceed. Then both attorneys made opening statements before the court adjourned for lunch at 11:45 a.m.

Setting the scene

The first witness was called after court resumed at 1:15 a.m. Klay Luke, now assistant commander of Georgia State Patrol Post 12 in Thomasville, was a crime scene investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation when Collins was killed in 2017. Luke discussed several photographs he took at the scene and some evidence he recovered and forwarded to the GBI Crime Lab for analysis.

Luke said he arrived at 3:50 a.m. and took hundreds of photographs over the next six hours. Still entered 30 of them into evidence for the state, and during cross-examination defense attorney Julius Collins entered four others. The photographs and a sketch of the crime scene that Luke drew were referred to multiple times through the day both with him and with other witnesses.

Six 9mm shell casings were recovered, as was one projectile that was lodged in the wall of the house. Luke recovered a cell phone and a cigarette at the scene; both were entered into evidence but their relevance wasn’t revealed on the first day of the trial.

After Luke, paramedic Dustin Hart told jurors he was a member of the first EMS crew to arrive on the scene; a second two-person crew arrived soon afterward. When Hart arrived, Shvensky Collins was breathing but not responsive. They quickly loaded him onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. The paramedics worked to stabilize him before driving to the hospital, but almost immediately after leaving the scene they lost his heartbeat and never regained it. He was pronounced dead by doctors after they arrived at Colquitt Regional Medical Center.

An eyewitness — or was he?

Next came what was probably the state’s most important witness of the day. Gerwarney Fleming said he saw Tyler shoot Collins — or more correctly, he saw Tyler shoot something and later discovered that something was the young man.

Fleming testified that he was inside the house where the shooting occurred. He said he stepped onto the porch to retrieve his beer when he saw Tyler crossing the yard. Tyler’s mother lived across the street and Fleming knew Tyler well, so he thought Tyler was coming to join them in the house. He said he bent down to pick up his beer and heard Tyler say, “Naw!” Then he said he heard a shot, so he ducked low on the porch. He said Tyler had his hand extended with a gun pointed at someone, but an oak tree blocked his line of sight so he couldn’t see who it was. A second shot rang out, and Fleming said he jumped up and dashed into the house. More shots were heard.

“I said, ‘Man, that’s Squeeze shooting!” Fleming said he told the others in the house.

He said the people in the house waited three or four minutes to make sure the shooting had stopped then went out. Collins’ mother was the first out the door, so she was the first one to realize it was her son who’d been shot.

Fleming said he went to the house next door — where a cousin lives — and told him to call 911. He said his cousin told him to stay and tell the police what he saw, but Fleming said he told him he didn’t want to be involved and he left.

After police came looking for him the next day, he told them about seeing Tyler shooting and finding Collins shot.

The case dragged on. Fleming moved to Florida then at some point moved back to Moultrie. After that — in September 2020 — he had an encounter with Julius Collins, Tyler’s defense attorney.

Fleming said he was visiting his cousin, who asked him to ride to the store with him and he agreed. His brother didn’t drive straight to the store, though. He said he had to make a stop first, and that stop was at Tyler’s mother’s house. Fleming said Tyler was in the yard on the phone. When they got out, he said, Tyler told him his attorney wanted to talk with him and handed him the phone.

Fleming said he was scared and told the attorney he had lied about Tyler shooting Collins. He said Tyler had purchased Fleming’s father’s house and had promised to give Fleming the money but had given it to his brother instead — which, according to other points in his testimony, was apparently true — but he told the attorney he had lied about the shooting because he was mad at Tyler over that money. 

Fleming said two women he didn’t know picked him up and took him to the attorney’s Atlanta office. Fleming went willingly. In the office, Fleming told him he’d been smoking crack cocaine earlier the day of the shooting — which his testimony Wednesday indicated was also true. He signed an affidavit that said he’d lied to police about seeing Tyler do the shooting.

After a joint meeting with the defense and prosecuting attorneys and the DA’s victims advocate, Fleming changed his story back to what he’d said originally — that he had seen Tyler shooting and they later found the victim was Shvensky Collins. 

“The document you signed in his office, was it the truth or a lie?” Still asked Fleming on the witness stand Wednesday.

“It was a lie,” Fleming said.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because I was scared.”

Julius Collins was unconvinced. Under his cross-examination, Fleming agreed he was not threatened nor paid to change his story, and he wasn’t threatened, paid or coerced to go to Atlanta to meet with him.

“Why would you ride to Atlanta with unknown parties if you were afraid?” the attorney asked him.

Fleming said he wasn’t afraid on the ride because Collins had invited him to come.

During his testimony, Fleming implied the attorney had behaved unethically — in fact, he said Collins had told him to sign the affidavit without giving him a chance to read it. Collins addressed the allegation with the judge and prosecutor away from the jury.

“This court does not believe you have done anything improper,” Voyles assured him.

Collins then hammered the point to Fleming on the stand with the jury present, getting him to read the document aloud and confirming that everything in it was what Fleming had told him that day in his office. Fleming had said there was no one in the meeting but him and Collins, and Collins’s questioning couldn’t get him to change that testimony.

Dying words

The day ended much as it began, with Sebrena Robinson describing conversations with her nephew before he died. Robinson told the jury she lives four blocks from the house where Shvensky Collins was shot. Her sister called from the scene and she ran all the way over there. Collins was on the ground and first responders hadn’t arrived yet. She said she asked him who shot him.

“He said, ‘Squeeze. Squeeze.’ I said, ‘I knew it,'” she testified.

The defense attorney objected but the judge allowed the testimony. The defense attorney played a recording he said was Robinson’s interview with GBI agent Zach Johnson in which he claimed she said his dying words were, “I can’t breathe,” but she would not confirm it was her voice on the recording; she said it sounded like her sister’s. Collins said the recording can be confirmed when Johnson is called to the witness stand.

Still asked Robinson about the threats Collins had reported to her.

“He kept telling me every day until it happened,” she said.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Thursday in the courtroom of the Colquitt County Courthouse Annex.