-Jasmine Dyer-
Cousins!
Eric Holder Jr. has pleaded not guilty to one count of premeditated murder for the brutal shooting of rapper Nipsey Hussle in March of 2019!
Holder only asserts guilt to voluntary manslaughter, but his getaway Lyft driver’s testimony could be the primary source to determine his conviction.
On June 20, Bryannita Nicholson, 35, took the witness stand and testified that she unwittingly acted as the getaway driver for the man charged with the murder of Nipsey Hussle.
Nicholson claims she and Eric Holder Jr. had met one month prior when she picked him up in the same Chevy Cruze that was reported as a suspect vehicle to Hussle’s slaying.
The home caregiver and Lyft driver admitted that she and Holder had been intimate and hung out casually for about five weeks, but she didn’t consider him her “boyfriend,” LA Times reports.
On March 31, 2019, the two pulled into the parking lot where Hussle’s Marathon Clothing store resides. Nicholson says Hussle was standing in the parking lot; she was ecstatic to see him. “He fine, I wanna take a picture with him,” she yelled before running over to snap a selfie. Minutes after she posted that selfie would be the demise of Nipsey Hussle.
Nicholson said Holder told her to shop while he went to get food in the shopping center. She had no clue Hussle owned the mall. Holder also didn’t inform her that he and Nipsey grew up in the same neighborhood, holding ties to the same street gangs.
Holder, a Rollin 60s Crip gang Member, went to address a rumor that Hussle heard of him snitching. Nicholson listened to a little bit of the conversation, Holder raised his voice, but he didn’t seem aggressive. Nicholson reportedly said that Nipsey kept his cool, appearing to witnesses like he wanted to help Holder.
Nicholson hurried back to the car to post the picture on Facebook. Holder returned chili fries from Master Burger and told her to drive around the block. While she drove, Holder pulled out a black semiautomatic handgun, loaded and attached the magazine.
“I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ You put that away, you ain’t going to shoot nothing outside my car,” Nicholson testified. “He did put it away.”
Holder then instructed her to pull into an alley near the strip mall so he could stop and eat. Nicholson said he ate the fries, seemingly not angry or upset. Holder then told Nicholson not to go anywhere before exiting the car.
While Nicholson sat in the car completely unaware of Holder, he returned to the parking lot with a handgun in one hand and a revolver in the other, shooting Nipsey 10 times, according to prosecutors. The bullets pierced the rapper’s head, torso, and spine, and he died a short time later.
Two men were also injured during the murder of Nipsey Hussle. Witness Shermi Villanueva, 47, may have heard Nipsey’s last words as he lay bleeding on the ground outside the rapper’s clothing store. According to Rolling Stone, Villanueva said he and his uncle Kerry Lathan were speaking to Hussle before their assailant let fire.
Villanueva, who said he works in the “medical field,” testified that he told Nipsey not to move “because [Hussle] said he was shot in his back, and it was possible he could have a spinal injury.”
Meanwhile, Nicholson said she heard two gunshots and saw a man running away. She thought to drive away but remembered Holder was outside and could be in danger. When he returned to the car soon after, Nicholson testified that Holder ordered her to drive and threatened to slap her.
She told jurors that she didn’t think he shot anyone, especially Nipsey. The ride back to her home in Long Beach was very quiet. Nicholson was shocked to see a news report on Nipsey’s death hours later but still didn’t factor Holder as the shooter.
It wasn’t until later that night, that the picture she had posted with Hussle to social media received comments asking if she was there around the time he was killed. Few minutes later, social media began to connect Holder to the murder of Nipsey. Nicholson said she asked Holder about what she’s seeing on social media and he “brushed it off.”
The morning after Holder had spent the night, Nicholson helped him get a hotel room and went to work. A little bit later, Nicholson’s mother called her about her car being on the news in reports about Nipsey’s Murder. She immediately went to the police and spent five hours in questioning.
Holder was arrested in Bellflower the next day, apparently, he was trying to check into a mental health facility, stated Aaron Jansen, Holder’s Public Defender.
The district attorney’s office has granted Bryannita Nicholson immunity in the case unless the judge rules she lied on the stand.
According to Deputy District Attorney John McKinney, the case against Holder would’ve been concluded up as early as Wednesday, however Holder was reportedly attacled.
The Los Angeles Times reports Holder lost consciousness and needed three staples to a wound in the back of his head after he was jumped in a holding cell awaiting to be taken to court Tuesday morning.