NORFOLK, Va. — Ziontay Palmer walked into a Norfolk courtroom in shackles Monday to plead the case labeled a 'mass shooting' in Norfolk in 2021. The Young Terrace neighborhood shooting was labeled a "mass shooting" by Norfolk's then-police chief.
The three women died that day: Nicole Lovewine, Detra Brown and Sara Costine. Two other women were shot, but survived. Norfolk Police identified one of the survivors as Palmer's girlfriend who was pregnant at the time of the shooting. The other survivor is a mother who was a neighbor the Young Terrace section.
The 21-year-old, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, stayed quiet for most of the pre-trial hearing as he looked at the paperwork on his desk.
Dozens of family members and friends of the victims sat behind Palmer in the courtroom, remaining quiet themselves.
In a pre-trial motion to help support his case, Palmer's attorney, Eric Korslund, filed a motion to suppress one of the survivors from identifying Palmer in the courtroom during her testimony.
As a result of the motion, attorneys brought the survivor, who was the neighbor who got shot, to the witness stand to testify once again. The survivor recounted the moments leading up to the shooting.
She said she heard gunshots on the night of November 3, 2021 while she was getting ready to make dinner. Scared for her children, who she knew were playing outside of a friend's home around the corner, she ran outside.
She said she saw her friend, Sara Costine, leaning over a woman's body on the ground. The survivor said she saw Ziontay Palmer walk toward Costine, lean in her ear to whisper something. She said she was Costine look up with a facial expression showing disgust or rage, and that's when she said Palmer shot Costine multiple times.
When the survivor said her son, who was on a nearby trampoline with other children, yelled for her to run, she said Palmer looked straight at her, walked toward her, and pointed his gun in her direction.
She said that's when she ran to hide behind a trash can, begging Palmer not to shoot her.
The survivor said Palmer came around the other side of the trash can, bit the bottom of his lip, and grinned at her, before shooting her in the face.
She said she didn't even realize she had gotten shot a second time in the shoulder area, because she blacked out after she was first shot. She said the last thing she remembered before waking up in the hospital was people telling her an ambulance was on the way.
The survivor said she was in the hospital for about a week or less and then a couple weeks after she went home, the detectives who responded to the scene paid her a visit at her home. She said the detectives pulled out a folder with six photos, saying they wanted to show her every person involved in the shooting.
The photos were of all the women shot in the incident, plus one photo of Ziontay Palmer, his attorney stated to the court.
Both the survivor and the detective testified that the showing of the photos was not a formal "photo line-up" detectives do when asking a witness to identify a suspect properly.
The survivor, later echoed by the detective, said she immediately identified Palmer when she came across his photo, saying, "I never forgot his face. I have nightmares about it."
Korslund argued to the judge that the detectives did not conduct a proper photo line-up to have the survivor identify Palmer. He said the survivor never described Palmer beyond being an African-American male with a slim build, arguing the detectives never showed more than one photo of males matching a similar description to ensure the survivor identified him thoroughly and independently.
"In this case, one of the victims of the shooting and critical witness was only showed one picture of Mr. Palmer three weeks after this happened," Korslund said in an interview outside the courthouse. "My position is that her identification is tainted by that."
However, the judge called the survivor's identification of Palmer "reliable" because of her clear recollection of the series of events, despite her traumatic experience.
"I'm not discouraged by it. I think it opens the door for us to basically show the jury how easily someone could be misidentified, so I'm going to use it to our advantage," Korslund explained. "I think we have a triable case. There's no physical, I should say scientifical, evidence linking him to this."
Family members of the victims did not wish to speak on camera as they await the trial, but they called this entire situation difficult to process as they mourn the loss of their loved ones.
Ziontay Palmer chose to have a trial by jury, which will be picked by the judge starting Tuesday morning. The trial is scheduled to last the rest of the week.