Within a day of the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Michael Kirksey in 2009, two Akron police detectives had the name of their murder suspect.It happened in a secret meeting with a frightened young woman, Jennette Bland, who came to the meeting alone in the darkness near J.E. Good Park Golf Course on the west side of Akron.“She wanted to be inconspicuous. She didn’t want anyone knowing she was talking to us,” one of the detectives said.But talk she did.And a Summit County jury heard every minute of it Wednesday as the aggravated murder trial of Elohim El-Jones — known on the streets as “Profit” — continued at the county courthouse.In a tape-recorded interview with the detectives inside their car, Bland said she was with El-Jones only moments before Kirksey was shot while watching a Browns preseason football game inside his aunt’s Ericsson Avenue apartment, Aug. 15, 2009.When El-Jones approached the front window of the apartment, gun in hand, Bland said she took off running — and then heard the shots that shattered the window.Prosecutors played the police interview for the jury Wednesday morning, apparently succeeding in tying El-Jones to the crime scene.They had tried to do it the day before on the first day of testimony, but one witness after another crumbled under the stress of what Summit County Assistant Prosecutor Brian LoPrinzi called the “snitches get stitches” scenario.Detective Sgt. David Garro, one of the two officers in the car during the Good Park meeting, explained to the jury what it means.“That means: Don’t talk to the police. And if you do talk to the police,” Garro said, “you’re going to get hurt — snitches get stitches.”The Good Park meeting was one of three recorded interviews with Bland on Aug. 16, 2009 — less than 24 hours after the slaying.“I don’t want anybody to know I said anything. I don’t want to go to jail for something someone else did,” Bland told the detectives.Testimony showed Kirksey was shot multiple times as he sat on a couch in front of the window.The apartment was filled with people who knew each other for years, including at least three children.Weapon not recoveredKirksey also had a weapon that night — a .45-caliber handgun that had been tucked in his waistband — but Garro testified it was not connected to the crime in any way.The gun that was used in the killing, Garro said, was a .40-caliber pistol. He told the jury it was never recovered.But investigators did find three .40-caliber shell casings in the grass outside the window, along with one spent .40-caliber bullet inside the apartment, Garro said.The evidence was sent to the state crime lab for comparison to guns in a national criminal database, but no match was ever found, Garro said.Bland, 23, was one of two women who reluctantly testified in Tuesday’s chaotic court session — only after Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer had ordered both to take the stand.LoPrinzi repeatedly tried Tuesday to get Bland to testify in person about what happened in the hours before the shooting. But with a hand covering her eyes in more than an hour on the stand, her testimony varied from start to finish.Prior altercationIn Wednesday’s recorded interview, however, LoPrinzi established that Bland knew “Profit” since childhood.And Bland also told the detectives she was with him in the moments before the shooting, walking with him toward the apartment window and “just talking.”One of the things they talked about, Bland said, was an altercation between Kirksey and El-Jones at the Chapel Hill Mall the day before. After going inside the apartment momentarily to get a tissue for her nose, Bland told the detectives she went back outside and saw him near the window with a gun. She strongly denied setting up the shooting as Kirksey’s aunt had indicated in her testimony Tuesday.“I would never set anybody up,” Bland told the detectives.Bland’s sister, testimony showed, was a godchild to Kirksey’s aunt.The Good Park recording also revealed that Bland had another meeting with the same two detectives and picked out the suspect from a police photo array. This part of the meeting involved veteran Detective Jim Pasheilich, the second officer in the car.Although Bland refused to put her signature next to the suspect she picked out, she placed an X over the middle of the suspect’s face. It was a photo of Profit, with long, braided locks at the time.Pasheilich assured Bland that he and Garro would keep her name out of the investigation, “unless it goes to court, if it ever goes to court.” The trial continues today, but there has been no indication from El-Jones’ lawyer about whether he will take the stand.Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or at emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.