Trial begins for man charged with killing teen and seriously injuring star football player

Opening statements are due Tuesday in the trial of a convicted felon charged with shooting two brothers, killing one, in the teens' southeast Atlanta neighborhood.

Nick Martin and half-brother Andre Johnson were hanging out with friends when the sounds of gunfire echoed through Peoplestown, a working class neighborhood located in the shadow of Turner Field.

"We were standing outside, and there was six people standing in front of a Saturn," Johnson, a star defensive end for Carver High School, told the AJC in an interview last year. "They started shooting in the air. We didn’t know who they were."

They teens scattered. Johnson, then 15, headed east, across Hank Aaron Drive toward home, while Martin, 16, rushed back to his mother's apartment.  Martin was shot in the back of the head and collapsed just 10 feet from his back door.

The bullet that hit Johnson shattered his jaw before whistling past the brain and out his left eye. Johnson lost nearly a pint of blood by the time he arrived at Grady Memorial Hospital. He eventually recovered, but his half-brother never regained consciousness. Martin was pronounced dead at Grady less than 24 hours after the April 2009 shooting.

Johnson, fitted with a synthetic eye, defied expectations and resumed playing football last fall. He told the AJC he keeps a photo of his half-brother on his IPod. "Want him close to me," he said last fall.

The accused assailant, Timothy Thomas, faces multiple charges, including two counts of felony murder. Another youth was shot in the ankle but not seriously injured.