RIVERSIDE — A man is on trial for murder after police said he killed someone leaving a poker game.
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Prosecutors said the two men who robbed the victim and snatched his fanny pack believed it to have poker winnings in it.
They told jurors that Ryan Wilson planned the whole thing and drove the car that was involved in the deadly hit-and-run.
“Ryan Wilson was at the Poker Hub that evening, but he left at 8:30,” Lucas Wilder, defense attorney, defendant, told the jury.
Wilder said that Wilson was at a poker club on Burkhardt Road in October 2023, the night David Mills died, but wasn’t involved in the crime.
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Prosecutors have a much different view of what happened.
“The evidence will show that the driver of that White Chrysler 300 on October 4th, 2023, was this defendant,” Whitney Crim, prosecuting attorney, said.
Crim told the jury that Wilson knew the victim from the Poker Hub.
Prosecutors believe he wanted to rob David Mills and recruited two men, who Mills wouldn’t know, to grab Mills’ money while he drove the getaway car.
Surveillance video appears to show two men hop out and rob Mills, prosecutors said they took his fanny pack, known to contain cash and poker chips.
Prosecutors claim Wilson stayed in the car so Mills wouldn’t recognize him.
But Mills walked up to the car, trying to get his money back.
“The white Chrysler 300 turns into him, knocks him backwards, causing him to strike his head on the concrete of that parking lot, where he suffered a catastrophic brain injury and died from that injury just days later," Crim said.
Prosecutors did call their first witness, a police officer, but the two main witnesses will be John Disney and Eric Caldwell, who both told prosecutors that Wilson planned the whole thing.
We will continue to follow this story.
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