Admitted Carnegie Deli massacre killer Sean Salley took the stand yesterday – weaving an incredible tale of being taken hostage and forced at gunpoint to join in the robbery-turned-bloodbath above the famous eatery.
Speaking at times so quietly the judge ordered him to talk up, Salley, 30, blamed his co-defendant, Andre Smith, 31, for sticking a gun in his back on May 10, 2001, as they climbed the stairs to the top floor.
Salley claimed all he’d intended to do at the apartment of 39-year-old singer and pot dealer Jennifer Stahl was pick up some surplus “herb” Stahl was letting him sell.
“He said he’d shoot the s- – – out of me if I didn’t do what he said,” Salley testified.
Within the next six minutes that day, Stahl’s guests inside the apartment had been ordered to lie face down. They were bound with duct tape at the wrists and ankles, then shot in the heads execution-style.
Two survived to testify Tuesday. But three died – with Stahl the first victim and Salley her admitted shooter.
“He tells me to hold the f- – -ing gun and stand right there,” Salley continued. “I was just so caught up, wrapped up at the time, I didn’t know what to do.
“He looked up,” Salley said of Smith, “and told me to raise the f- – -ing gun, point the f- – -ing gun at her. I raised the gun at Jennifer’s head.
“I guess it was cocked back,” he said of the .38-caliber. revolver. “I didn’t know. I wasn’t paying attention to it.”
Asked by defense lawyer Mitchell Dinnerstein what happened next, Salley at first skipped the whole business of pulling the trigger, answering, “I dropped the gun.”
When Dinnerstein asked what happened before that, Salley said, “A shot went off.” He said he didn’t know how far away Stahl was when he fired.
But earlier, a pathologist testified that the damage to Stahl’s brain, the fractures in her skull, the soot in her entry wound and the ripping of her scalp all pointed to the gun having been flush against her forehead when the bullet was fired.