Trial is brother vs. brother

Jerrell Abram kept glancing off to the side, up at the ceiling, toward the jury box.

Anything to avoid facing the man at the defense table.

His brother, Jamaal.

“Is there a reason you're not looking over here?” Jamaal's attorney, James Martin Davis, asked Tuesday as Jamaal's attempted murder trial began.

Jerrell Abram took a deep breath and wiped his tears with handcuffed hands.

“No,” he sighed.

“You were pretty close to Jamaal, weren't you?” Davis asked.

Jerrell Abram whimpered a bit. His voice broke.

“Yes.”

The brothers are close no more.

Prosecutors pitted brother against brother Tuesday as they attempt to prove that Jamaal Abram tried to kill Sarah Schramm on June 23, 2008.

In opening statements and testimony at Jamaal's attempted murder trial, prosecutors Nissa Jones and Brenda Beadle painted the Abram brothers as wannabe vigilantes — intent on avenging the death of their cousin, Tieres Abram.

Davis, in turn, cast Jerrell Abram, who has cooperated with the state, as the scheme's real mastermind.

On June 23, 2008, prosecutors say, the brothers set out to kill Schramm, the girlfriend living with Tieres Abram at the time of his death.

Omaha police concluded that Tieres, a 24-year-old aspiring rapper, committed suicide by hanging himself on June 30, 2007, and investigators attributed no foul play to Schramm or anyone else.

But in their anguish, some family members spiraled into unending speculation about Tieres' death — singling out Schramm and eventually producing a widely circulated e-mail that blamed her.

Such was the context of Jerrell's and Jamaal's actions nearly a year after their cousin's death, prosecutors say.

Jerrell, who met Schramm the day of the shooting, testified that the Abram family put out word that Tieres' mother wanted to speak with Schramm.

“I didn't think she was responsible for his death,” Jerrell said. “But it was going around the family that she may be responsible.”

With the one-year anniversary of Tieres' death approaching, Jerrell testified, he drove out to Forest Lawn Cemetery with three women to visit Tieres' grave.

Schramm already was there. She was writing in a journal as she sat next to her former boyfriend's hillside grave.

Jerrell, 21, testified that he called Jamaal, 24, to tell him that Schramm was at Tieres' grave. He said Jamaal told him to go get her and to not let her go.

So, Jerrell testified, he hopped out of his sport utility vehicle and confronted Schramm.

“What happened to my cousin?” he hollered.

He then asked her to go with him to meet with Tieres' mother to talk about Tieres' death.

Confronted by a man she had never met, Schramm begged off. She said she would follow in her car. Jerrell said that wouldn't work.

Jerrell said he “tugged” her by her belt and told her to come with him. He ordered her into the back of his SUV, told her to put her car keys on the ground and told the three women with him to follow in Schramm's car.

With Schramm in the back seat, Jerrell testified that he drove and drove — constantly calling Jamaal to ask what he should do.

Jerrell said he parked, with Schramm still in the car, at two different apartment complexes. All the while, Jerrell kept asking Schramm what had happened to Tieres.

Crying, Schramm tried to talk him down. She shared with him her journals, which spilled her heartache over Tieres' death.

At one point, Jerrell told Schramm he would take her back to her car.

He didn't. Instead, he said, he deferred to Jamaal.

As the evening wore on, Jerrell said, a third relative, Rayshawn Abram, joined the fray.

Rayshawn, a brother of Tieres, called from Jamaal's cell phone and told Jerrell to take Schramm to a wooded area near 56th Street and Sorensen Parkway.

Jerrell said he drove toward 54th Street and Bauman Avenue, where he saw Rayshawn's Cadillac Escalade backed up to a dead end.

What Jerrell said happened next was surreal, like something out of a gangster movie:

Jamaal, shrouded in black, emerging from some bushes. Jamaal dragging Schramm out of the back seat of Jerrell's SUV. Pressing a gun to Schramm's back and making her walk.

Schramm begging for her life and calling Jamaal by his nickname.

“Sauce,” she pleaded, according to Jerrell, “you don't have to do this.”

Jerrell testified that Jamaal threw her to the ground and fired several times — three shots hitting her in the back.

Jerrell said he, Jamaal and Rayshawn then took off in the two SUVs — with Jamaal tossing the gun into a sewer and setting fire to his clothes after the shooting. Rayshawn ordered them all to never speak about what happened.

Then, somehow, Schramm survived. And the three Abram men scattered. Jamaal fled to Atlanta, Jerrell hid in Omaha, and Rayshawn was on the lam until Tuesday. Rayshawn, 28, was arrested by Omaha police and charged with attempted first degree murder, use of a weapon to commit a felony, witness tampering and conspiracy.

Jerrell pleaded no contest in August to attempted first-degree murder, use of a weapon to commit a felony and criminal conspiracy. In exchange, prosecutors dropped charges of kidnapping and witness tampering.

On Tuesday, Davis picked at Jerrell's testimony — and his role. He pointed out that it was Jerrell who abducted Schramm, who drove her around, who wouldn't let her go, who led her to what almost became a dead end.

He suggested that Jerrell, not Jamaal, shot Schramm.

“You didn't want to tell the police that you were the one who shot Sarah, did you?” Davis asked.

“I didn't shoot her,” Jerrell said calmly, “so why would I tell them that?”

Contact the writer:

444-1275, todd.cooper@owh.com