Man goes on trial today in 1995 shooting death of Ann Arbor teenager

Deondre Byrd, long suspected in a rival gang shooting that left a 16-year-old girl dead on Ann Arbor's south side in 1995, will go on trial today in that case.

Byrd, 34, is also awaiting trial in federal court in the shooting deaths of an Ypsilanti Township woman, her boyfriend and 14-year-old son in 2001.

Tamara Stewart, 16, of Ann Arbor was attending a barbecue on Ann Arbor's south side in July 1995 when she was killed by a stray bullet during a shoot-out that police say was spurred by a feud between two gangs.

Deondre Byrd

Police have said the feud involved Byrd and William "Chuck" Taylor. Both men were charged, but the cases were dismissed when witnesses refused to testify, saying they were too scared. Taylor was shot to death in an unrelated case at an Ann Arbor hotel in 2002.

Three other men also were charged; two were convicted, and one was acquitted.

The case was revived last year after one of the men who was convicted - 33-year-old Emilio Vasquez - won the right to a new trial on appeal.

Before his second trial got under way, Vasquez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and admitted he fired a handgun in Stewart's direction that night. Vasquez, who was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, also agreed to testify in any cases that arose from Stewart's death.

Byrd, who faces one count of open murder in Stewart's death, is scheduled for a jury trialÂ this morning in Washtenaw Circuit Court before Judge Archie Brown. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.