Photo by Emma Delk Niyajah Hales faces a first-degree murder charge for the 2021 shooting of Wheeling resident Michael J. Jackson.

WHEELING — On the first day of the trial of Niyajah Hales for the 2021 death of Wheeling resident Michael J. Jackson, the prosecution presented jurors with surveillance footage from the VooDoo Lounge on Wheeling Island where Jackson was shot.

Hales of Brooklyn, N.Y. faces a charge of first-degree murder for the shooting of Jackson, which occurred early in the morning of Jan. 28, 2021. Ohio County Circuit Judge Michael Olejasz is presiding over the trial.

Jackson was shot multiple times outside of the Voodoo Lounge by a suspect identified as Hales by the Wheeling Police Department. Jackson would later die at WVU Medicine Ruby Memorial Hospital as a result of the injuries sustained in the shooting.

Hales’ friend Brian Steele, also of New York, was identified and arrested by the WPD shortly after the shooting.

Steele pleaded guilty to a charge of wanton endangerment with a firearm for firing a shot into the Voodoo Lounge the night of Jackson’s death and was sentenced to five years in prison in October 2021.

The footage from the night of the shooting was displayed to jurors by Ohio County Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Turak during the questioning of the state’s first witness, WPD Detective Dean Redinger.

After being called to the scene of the shooting on Jan. 28, Redinger collected evidence and questioned witnesses at the bar.

In her opening statements, Turak said the surveillance footage would be the “most compelling evidence” seen during the trial. She noted the video would display “four fundamental angles” of the altercation between Hales and Jackson, which would depict Hales’s “unlawful, intentional, willful, deliberate, premeditated, malicious killing of Michael Jackson.”

Defense attorney Braden Noon outlined in his opening statements that the footage instead depicted the “story of a bar fight.” He noted that Hales’ actions on Jan. 28 were him “exercising the right to defend” himself and Steele after Jackson threw a beer bottle at the pair, which escalated the verbal altercation at the bar to physical violence.

Surveillance footage of the shooting displayed to jurors included footage from cameras inside the VooDoo Lounge’s main bar area, poker room and outside of the main entrance to the building. Footage from Spunky’s Laundromat, which is located across the street from the Voodoo Lounge, was also shown during Redinger’s testimony.

The first footage Turak displayed from Jan. 28 came from inside the VooDoo Lounge. The video began with Hales sitting in the bar’s poker room before a verbal altercation between him and Jackson’s friend, Clint Lekanudos, occurred. Jackson then walked to the poker room from the bar area and entered into a verbal argument with Hales.

Jackson retreated from the situation, and Steele approached Halesd and spoke to him. VooDoo Lounge owner Erick Brothers then escorted Hales and Steele from the bar.

Redinger said that Hales and Steele returned to the bar to collect Hales’ phone, which Hales realized he had left behind after “checking his person.” Hales noted that while the two waited to receive Hales’ phone in the area between the outer entrance of the VooDoo Lounge and the inner door to the bar, patron Michael Biery handed Hales a phone.

During defense attorney Kevin Neiswonger’s cross-examination of Redinger, the detective confirmed for Neiswonger that Biery handed Hales the wrong phone. After the incident, the WPD later collected Hales’ phone from the bar.

In the footage from the VooDoo Lounge, Steele attempted to stop Hales from re-entering the bar. Lekanudos then entered into another verbal altercation with the two, culminating in Jackson picking up a beer bottle and throwing it at Hales and Steele.

The bottle missed Hales and Steele and struck Brothers in the head. Redinger noted that Jackson then entered a physical altercation with Steele outside the bar. In the surveillance footage from the bar, the door inside the VooDoo Lounge was shown to close behind the three.

Turak then had Redinger identify how long the group remained outside in the VooDoo Lounge footage. Redinger said approximately 20 seconds passed before Redinger “limps back into the bar while smoking a cigarette.” A bullet then entered the bar through the inner entrance to the VooDoo Lounge, causing patrons to duck away.

Surveillance footage from Spunky’s Laundromat depicting the shooting outside the VooDoo Lounge was then shown to jurors.

In the video, Hales first exited the bar followed by Steele and Jackson, who were engaged in a physical fight. Redinger outlined that Hales came up from behind Steele and Jackson and fired a shot at Jackson’s back.

While running through Spunky’s Laundromat footage again, Turak had Redinger count the four shots fired during the altercation.

After the presentation of the surveillance footage, an interview between Hales and WPD Detective Robert Agostino after his arrest in May 2023 was played. In the tape, Hales confirmed that he did not know Jackson before Jan. 28.

In the tape, Hales also stated that he returned to the bar on Jan. 28 after his first verbal altercation with Lekanudos to retrieve his phone. He added that he never “looks for trouble” and had “nothing to say” to officers since he’d “have to say it in court.”

During his cross-examination of Redinger, Neiswonger had Redinger confirm that though Steele and Hales had entered a “heated verbal conversation” with Lekanudos, they left the bar “with no incident” when Brothers escorted him out.

Neiswonger then questioned Reginger whether “three to four” bar patrons confronted Hales and Steele when they returned to the bar to collect Steele’s phone.

“I don’t know if they (bar patrons) were confronting him, but Lekanudos was,” Redinger responded.

Redinger then confirmed for Neiswonger that Jackson throwing the beer bottle was the “first act of physical violence” that occurred on Jan. 28. When Neiswonger asked Redinger who he thought Jackson was trying to strike with the bottle, Redinger stated Jackson was aiming for “either Hales or Steele, not Brothers.”

The trial continues today.