On a police interrogation video, Bickham Jr. stated that on the night of July 11, 2011 he was directed by his passenger, Cardell Taylor, to park across the street from the Priory Park campus parking lot, and that he watched as Taylor walked across Division Street into the parking lot. He said he then heard numerous gunshots, and subsequently saw Taylor “trot” back to the car, enter the front passenger door and say, “Go! Drive, go!”
But under cross-examination by assistant state’s attorney James McKay, Bickham struggled to explain numerous questions, including why he didn’t recognize his own car as it fled the murder scene, why he didn’t recognize his own son or a long-time neighbor and alleged friend at a street show up minutes after the shooting, and how his own gun was found in the car his son was driving.
McKay also hammered away at what he characterized as the inconsistency of Bickham Sr.’s wanting to be with Alexander alone in the park to have sex with her, and his numerous text and phone contacts with his son in the hour before the shooting, letting him know where he’d be.
A son, McKay stressed, who was supposedly angry about his father’s relationship with Alexander.