Indiana man denied in police interview to knowing, killing Tommy Curry in 2021

IOWA CITY — An Indiana man on trial for fatally shooting an Iowa City man in April of 2021 told police, during a video recorded interview, that he hadn’t been to Iowa since the end of March and denied being the killer.

Renard Winfield Jr., 32, of Gary, Ind., also denied knowing who shot him in June 2020 in Iowa City. Investigators testified last week that the 2020 shooting was Winfield’s motive for his revenge — fatally shooting Tommy Curry, 31, in the parking lot of Meadow Lark Apartment Complex, 2470 Lakeside Dr., Iowa City.

Last week, investigators said Winfield, posing as a woman on an online dating site, lured Curry to the apartment parking lot and fired 15 bullets from a 9 mm pistol into Curry’s SUV, killing him.

The prosecution in Winfield’s first-degree murder trial rested Monday. The defense will decide by Tuesday morning whether Winfield will testify. Closing statements will begin in the morning if he does not testify.

Defendant told detectives he’d never driven vehicle used in shooting

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Winfield, during the police interview played for the jurors Monday, said he was shot outside his ex-girlfriend’s residence and never found out who shot him. Nobody knew he was going to be at her home, so he thought she may have set him up.

He said she was rushing to get him out of her residence and as he was walking down the porch, someone started shooting. The person fired three times, but Winfield had never seen the man before.

In testimony, last week, investigators said Tommy Curry was the person of interest in Winfield’s shooting.

Iowa City Police Detective Gabe Cook, in the interview, asked how Winfield got to Iowa in March and Winfield said he took the bus.

Winfield, in the interview, said the white Dodge SUV, which is the vehicle Curry’s killer was driving on April 28, 2021, was his girlfriend’s vehicle at the time. He told detectives he never drove it and it had never been in Iowa City.

Last week, more than one investigator identified videos of the Dodge SUV, which was registered to Winfield’s mother, leaving the apartment complex on Lakeside Drive. Investigators showed the vehicle’s path of travel on the east side of town through surveillance camera footage taken from residences and businesses.

Winfield also made a video of himself loading a 9 mm gun with ammunition. The video was recorded on Winfield’s phone while he was in the Dodge SUV and parked in the Scheels parking lot, investigators said.

Detective Mike Smithey, who resumed his testimony from Friday, said there was a conversation with another person retrieved from Winfield’s phone that included a screenshot of Curry — taken from his dating site account — that was sent to this person on Jan. 17, 2021. Winfield, in the message, which was shown in court, wrote “That’s who shot me,” Smithey testified.

Winfield, in the conversation, said Curry responded to Winfield’s dating site account, when he posed as a woman.

On cross, Smithey said none of the eyewitnesses had identified Winfield as the shooter.

Firearms expert testifies

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The prosecution’s last witness was Vic Murillo, a retired and now part-time criminalist with Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation state lab in Ankeny, who is a certified expert in firearms and tool marks.

He demonstrated with a Smith & Wesson SD 9 mm pistol, which investigators say is the firearm used in the shooting, but the gun was a “reference” gun kept at the lab, not the actual gun used in the shooting. Investigators never found the gun used to kill Curry.

Murillo, who examined the 15 cartridge cases found at the scene, said they were consistent with being fired from a Smith & Wesson SD 9 mm and all had been fired by the same firearm. He made those determinations by examining the unique marks left on a cartridge case.

He couldn’t determine if the projectiles found at the scene were from the same gun, but they were Federal brand ammunition, which are lead bullets with a blue color coating. The blue projectiles were shown during testimony last week.

Murillo said he couldn’t determine the markings on those because of the impact damage to them.

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