The man who fatally shot retired Cambridge Police Officer Myles “Tony” Lawton and nearly killed Lawton’s friend two and a half years ago was motivated by greed, a Suffolk County prosecutor told a Superior Court jury this afternoon.

“What cost Myles Lawton his life … was greed,” Assistant District Attorney David Fredette said, telling jurors that Lawton would be alive today but for MICHAEL COLLINS’ “greed and willingness to pull the trigger and kill somebody over $40,000.”

Fredette urged jurors to find Collins (D.O.B. 11/5/79) guilty of first-degree murder, armed robbery, armed assault with intent to murder, and unlawful possession of a firearm for the 62-year-old Lawton’s fatal shooting and the non-fatal shooting of his friend, then 33, at Lawton’s Dorchester home.

Prosecutors allege that Collins, known as “Goody,” and the surviving victim knew each other prior to the shooting as frequent patrons of the Glass Slipper, a strip club in what was once Boston’s Combat Zone. Collins’ girlfriend was a dancer at the club; the surviving victim favored a particular dancer who was that woman’s roommate.

In the days and weeks leading up to Dec. 5, 2006, the surviving victim had discussions with Collins about purchasing cocaine. The two men made plans to meet at Lawton’s Florida Street apartment to make the exchange.

Collins arrived to the area in a leased white Mercury Mountaineer. The surviving victim met him outside and noticed that he was wearing a distinct black and blue New York Mets baseball jacket. The two men then walked together into the Florida Street apartment.

Upon entering, prosecutors allege, Collins asked to see the money. When the surviving victim asked to see the cocaine, the defendant allegedly replied that he would need to go back and get it.

Collins left the apartment for a period of time. When he returned, Lawton answered the door and allegedly had a brief conversation with the defendant. Collins then attempted to take the money – approximately $40,000 – that was on a table in the living room. Lawton is said to have become involved in a struggle with the defendant; during the course of the struggle, Collins shot Lawton once in the head. After killing Lawton, Collins then shot the surviving victim three times before fleeing the apartment with the money.

Boston Police officers arrived on the scene within five minutes, Fredette said. “The first words out of [the surviving victim’s mouth] were ‘Goody shot me’ – with a bullet in his chest and blood coming out of his mouth,” Fredette told jurors.

That man also gave a description of the gunman and picked him out of a photo array.

Fredette reminded jurors that before Collins fled the apartment, a married couple who lived in a downstairs unit saw Collins leaving the building after they heard a commotion coming from Lawton’s apartment and walked out into the hallway to see what was happening. Collins ran past the couple exclaiming, “Yo dude, I got a gun,” Fredette said.

Collins allegedly fled the scene in the Mercury. Investigators were later able to trace that vehicle to a rental car agency and discovered that Collins’ girlfriend had rented it on the same day as the murder, Fredette said. On the day following the murder, she returned the car and traded it for a red truck, he said, and the defendant later fled in that vehicle to Washington, D.C., where he was apprehended on Dec. 21, 2006.

In January of 2007, about one month after the shooting, a discarded firearm was found in a grassy area near the ramp of Route 93 at the Granite Avenue exit, Fredette said. Massachusetts State Police tested the firearm and sent it for ballistics testing. Shell casings recovered from the Florida Street crime scene were matched to the recovered weapon. Shell casings from another shooting that happened in Chelsea in July of 2006 also matched the weapon, Fredette said.

“The person who did the Chelsea shooting and the Boston shooting is the same person: ‘Goody,’” Fredette said. One of the victims of the Chelsea shooting also identified the shooter as “Goody” and picked Collins out of a photo array while in the hospital recovering from his wounds.

“The facts of this case point to one person and one person only – Michael Collins,” Fredette told jurors.

Collins is represented by attorney Rosemary Scapicchio. Judge Raymond Brassard instructed jurors on the relevant law in courtroom 907 of Suffolk Superior Court; jurors began their deliberations thereafter and will continue weighing the case tomorrow.