'Move.' Witness in 'Sweetie Pie's' murder says she stepped aside before victim was killed.

Sep. 9—ST. LOUIS — Terica Ellis said she had just lured Andre Montgomery Jr. outside to meet her when she got the text:

"Move."

Then she heard the gunshots that killed Montgomery, she told a St. Louis jury on Thursday.

Ellis was one of two star prosecution witnesses who took the stand on Thursday in the murder-for-hire trial of former St. Louis reality TV show star James "Tim" Norman. Norman is accused of orchestrating the 2016 murder of his nephew, 21-year-old Montgomery, then attempting to cash out up to $450,000 in a fraudulent life insurance policy on his life.

Before the killing, Norman and his nephew starred in "Welcome to Sweetie Pie's," a long-running OWN reality show about the popular soul-food business Norman's mother, Robbie Montgomery, founded in the St. Louis area.

The trial is a culmination of a complex St. Louis case that's gained national attention for years.

On Thursday, the third day of the trial, Ellis testified she was paid to track Montgomery on the day he died, and get him outside.

Then she heard the gunshots, she testified. She called Norman.

"I said: 'What happened? I hear gunshots.'" Ellis told the jury. "He said: 'Don't worry about it. Go home.'"

Next to take the stand on Thursday was Travell Anthony Hill. Hill said he was told Norman would pay to have Montgomery killed, so he killed him.

"Nobody else should be responsible for my actions but me," Hill said during cross-examination. "I looked up to Tim as a mentor."

Both Hill and Ellis have already pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the case.

'Move'

Ellis testified Thursday she had a long relationship with Norman, who would often pay her for sex and ask to meet up when he visited St. Louis.

The two met in 2011 while she was working at the Bottoms Up strip club in East St. Louis, Ellis told the jury.

The morning Montgomery was killed — March 14, 2016 — Ellis testified she met Norman at the Chase Park Plaza hotel in the Central West End for sex.

In the hotel room, she said, Norman told her he was in town looking for his nephew whom he suspected of a recent burglary.

At least $220,000 worth of cash, jewelry and other items were stolen a year earlier from the home of Robbie Montgomery, Norman's mother and Montgomery's grandmother. Montgomery told St. Louis County police Norman was behind the theft; Norman told several people he suspected Montgomery, according to court and police records. No one was charged in the case.

Ellis said that after looking at a photo of Montgomery, she told Norman she recognized his green dreadlocks and remembered exchanging numbers with him at Bottoms Up just a few days earlier.

Norman told her he would pay her $10,000 to track his nephew's location that day and gave her the full amount in cash out of a duffle bag in the hotel room, she testified.

Norman never mentioned he wanted to hurt his nephew, she said.

She began texting that day with Montgomery, she continued.

In the texts, she asked if Montgomery had a girlfriend and arranged to meet, first at a north St. Louis County La Quinta Inn and then at a north St. Louis basement recording studio where Montgomery, an aspiring rapper, told her he was preparing to shoot a music video.

Ellis told jurors she met Montgomery outside the studio in the 3600 block of Natural Bridge Drive and handed him clothes she bought him that afternoon for the video shoot.

Then, she testified, she got a text from one of Norman's "homeboys," to whom she had earlier given Montgomery's location. She told the jury she was never told the man's name.

"Move," the text said.

After the shooting, Ellis testified, Norman told her to go home, delete her Instagram page and get rid of a burner phone he'd told her to buy that morning.

In cross-examination, Norman's defense attorney Michael Leonard focused on Ellis' prior opinion of Norman before the shooting as a good guy, asked if she hoped to reduce her own sentence and highlighted her work as a dancer.

Ellis pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in July. She has not yet been sentenced.

"You want to get a shorter sentence don't you?," Leonard asked her Thursday.

"That has nothing to do with me telling the truth," Ellis replied.

Later Leonard asked if her time as a dancer made Ellis "pretty good at lying to get men to give you things you wanted and to get them to pay you."

Ellis said that was not true.

Hill admits to shooting

Hill said he was working as a drug dealer when he decided to meet up with a man he knew through Norman.

Hill testified that the man told him Norman would pay him to kill Montgomery; Hill emphasized that he never spoke directly about the killing with Norman himself.

After the conversation with the man, Hill said Thursday he bought a gun from someone he knew.

He used the weapon to shoot Montgomery twice, he testified. He told jurors he then threw away his phone and the gun and went to a club.

Within a couple days, Hill testified, he met up with another man, Derryl Howard, who paid him $5,000. He told the jury he believed the payment was for killing Montgomery.

Hill pleaded guilty in June to two counts of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. He has yet to be sentenced, but the counts hold a mandatory life sentence in prison.

On cross-examination, Leonard emphasized the lack of direct discussions Hill had with Norman about the shooting, Norman's reputation for having more than enough money, and Hill's view of him as a mentor.

Leonard also asked if Hill was on the drug ecstasy at the time of the shooting.

"I'm always on ecstasy," Hill replied.

After Hill, Howard took the stand, telling jurors that the day Montgomery was killed Norman asked him to pick up $5,000 from the hotel room at the Chase Park Plaza hotel. A few days later, he testified, Norman asked him to deliver the money to Hill.

Howard told the jury that, by then, he had heard about Montgomery's death and offered condolences to Norman.

"He was pretty much like (expletive) him," Howard testified. "He wasn't into the condolence-ing."

___

(c)2022 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.