A Lake Charles woman said Thursday in state district court that she saw what looked like a firecracker coming through the wall of her apartment before she was shot in the foot in 2011.

Prosecutors said the woman was a bystander as Mamou man Ceaser James Williams, 26, chased 32-year-old Westlake man Corey Demond Thomas through Sunlight Manor and killed him.

Williams is on trial for second-degree murder for Thomas’ death, as well as aggravated battery in the shooting of the woman. He also faces a charge of aggravated property damage.

Defense attorney King Alexander said it was not Williams who did the shooting, but his cousin, Tracy Williams.

The woman testified that she was outside talking to a friend at Sunlight Manor, north of Broad Street, when she heard a gunshot. When people began running, she ran to her apartment, where she turned around in the doorway and saw a man chasing another man, she said. The man doing the chasing stopped and started firing, she said.

“I saw maybe five, six shots come out, and I closed my door and stepped back,” she said.

The bullet that came through the wall struck her in the left heel, she said. She was not able to identify either man, she said.

Thomas was at Sunlight Manor selling drugs to Tracy Williams, prosecutor Tara Hawkins said in her opening statement. Thomas was shot once in the face, then twice more as he ran from Williams, she said.

The drug being sold is known as wet, a PCP-soaked cigarette, according to court testimony.

Tracy Williams’ then-girlfriend, Ebony Porterfield, said that on the night of May 31 — when Ceaser Williams is alleged to have shot Thomas — Tracy Williams burst into the room hysterical, saying that his cousin, “Lil’ C,” had shot someone.

Porterfield said she had heard Tracy Williams say he was going to kill someone before, but had not taken him seriously.

Mardell Lebleu, Ceaser Williams’ girlfriend, testified that he called her from an unknown number on May 31 and told her, “If anybody asks, I was with you.” He gave her a description of the clothes he wanted her to say he was wearing, she said.(MGNonline)