A Lexington police detective says a Nicholasville man told investigators he fatally shot a man last month because the man attacked his friend.
During police interviews, Carlos Taylor said he shot Carlos Castillo-Godoy because Godoy had punched Taylor's friend in the face, Detective Robert Wilson testified during a hearing in Fayette District Court.
Wilson said Taylor showed detectives where he had disposed of the handgun, which was recovered and will be used as evidence.
The shooting happened Jan. 25 in the back parking lot of the Larkin Apartments on Larkin Road, next to the Nicholasville Road Kmart.
In an interview with reporters Friday at the Fayette County jail, Taylor, 18, denied any knowledge of the shooting. He said he had never met Godoy, 24, and had not been to the Larkin Road apartments. On Thursday, Wilson said police were led to Taylor days after the shooting because of statements from two of Taylor's friends who said they had witnessed the shooting and by cell phone logs from Godoy that showed Taylor and his friends had talked just before the shooting.
Taylor's attorney, public defender Tom Griffiths, argued that Godoy had been the aggressor. During cross-examination, Wilson said investigators had found a set of brass knuckles at the scene, which he thought Godoy had used to attack Taylor's friend.
"During the interview with Mr. Taylor, Mr. Taylor did not see the brass knuckles. He was informed of them after," Wilson testified.
Wilson also said police had found 11/2 ounces of a substance suspected to be cocaine at the scene, which was thought to be Godoy's.
Griffiths said he plans to try to show the jury that Taylor was acting "in defense of someone else, possibly in defense of himself."
"The fact that the victim was there with over an ounce of cocaine — there with a weapon — shows that this is not someone who was innocent in the situation," Griffiths said.
Judge Megan Lake Thornton dismissed Griffiths' motion to have Taylor's charge amended to first-degree manslaughter, and she sent the case to a grand jury.
Griffiths said after the hearing that Godoy "struck first, he struck violently, he used a weapon, and even the police version and their witnesses' version show that Carlos was responding to that."
