FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — Jurors are still trying to reach a verdict in the killing of two high school students in Fairfax County.
Zachary Burkard, 19, admits he shot his two South County High School classmates, but his lawyer says it was self-defense after a series of back-and-forth social media threats gone bad.
The question that’s likely had jurors deliberating for a day and a half is whether it was premeditated murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or self-defense.
Jurors have seen video from the first police officer to arrive immediately after the shooting on April 25, 2021. They heard audio of the gunshots and have seen the vile threats – including the n-word -- made by Burkard. This occurred the day before the killings in a Snapchat video while he was waving a gun outside a house he thought was the home of one of the boys killed.
Now, jurors are left to deliberate what happened in the garage in the seconds before Burkard shot and killed Ersheen Elaiasher, 17, and Calvin Van Pelt, 16.
"Who did the shooting?" the officer is heard asking Burkard, who was kneeling over Elaiasher moments after the shooting. "Me," Burkard immediately replied. "Why?" "They were fighting and they wouldn’t knock it off," Burkard said before the officer cut him off while asking where the gun was.
Prosecutors say what Burkard did was first-degree murder. Burkard, a then 18-year-old aspiring drug dealer, the only one armed that day, seized the opportunity "to take out someone he didn’t like," said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joseph Martin.
Burkard’s lawyer, senior public defender Bryan Kennedy, said his client shot Elaisher to protect his friend Nick, who was allegedly on the verge of losing consciousness from being beaten. He told jurors Elaiasher’s One Way crew had threatened Burkard and his friends. Additionally, they'd come to the garage after the social media challenge, but then jumped Burkard’s friend four on one.
Burkard, testifying in his own defense, claimed he tried to shoot between Van Pelt and another man as they were moving toward him. Although the medical examiner testified that Van Pelt had been shot twice in the back.
"I have the shooter. He admitted shooting. He’s trying to help the person he shot," the officer said in the bodycam video from the crime scene.
Trying to save his victim’s life is "not the actions of a murderer," Kennedy argued.
WUSA9 will continue to cover Burkard's trial, and will update the story when a verdict comes down.