“Soheil Turner was a son, a grandson, a nephew and a friend to many people,” a Suffolk County homicide prosecutor told a Superior Court jury in closing arguments this morning. “Because of the actions of this defendant, he is none of those things anymore.”

Turner’s killer, Assistant District Attorney John Pappas said, was XZENIYEJU CHUKWUEZI (D.O.B. 4/4/91), on trial for first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm for allegedly shooting the 15-year-old high school student to death near the corner of Adams and Dudley streets as the victim waited for a bus to take him to school a year and a half ago.

Unbeknownst to the defendant, the shooting was captured in its entirety on a surveillance camera video.

“Forever 15-years-old, the lasting image of his short life will be of him standing innocently, defenseless and unaware, a school kid waiting at his bus stop and eating his honey bun, unaware that his executioner was waiting across the street and watching,” Pappas told the court.

Pappas described what transpired after Chukwuezi left his Forest Street home a little after 7:00 a.m. on the morning of May 7, 2009, and walked a block down the street to where Turner stood at a bus stop in front of the Nunez Market.

“When you watch that video, as you’ve seen it played in the courtroom, ladies and gentlemen … you see [the defendant] step by step, waiting, watching, approaching – all the while having that loaded .380 in his right hand pocket – engaging Soheil Turner, defenseless, unsuspecting, then making the decision to take that gun out and to shoot him in the back of the head,” Pappas said.

Pointing at the defendant, Pappas said, “This coward shot him in the back of the head as he waited at his bus stop.”

In addition to the video, Pappas said, multiple witnesses were able to provide a description of the defendant as he fled the scene. One of those witnesses knew Chukwuezi and saw the defendant moments before the shooting as he walked down Adams Street to Dudley Street, Pappas told the court. The defendant and witness acknowledged each other – an action that was also captured on the video. That witness “broke away the shackles of fear,” Pappas said, and in interviews with Boston Police homicide detectives said what she knew and subsequently identified the defendant from a photo array.

“There is no conspiracy theory, there is no mystery man,” Pappas said. “The evidence points to one person, and one person alone and it’s this defendant right here.”

Pappas told the court that there were other witnesses who saw Chukwuezi in the area either moments before or immediately after the shooting, and one of those witnesses saw the defendant run into the backyard behind his home on Forest Street.

“There’s nothing blurry about the evidence in this case, ladies and gentlemen,” Pappas said. “When you consider what you’ve heard and what you’ve seen over the past week or so, it becomes crystal clear that this defendant, Xzeniyeju Chukwuezi, was the only person who had a gun that morning, and he alone committed this cold-blooded execution on the morning of May 7, 2009.”

It was during the course of “a very direct and very intense investigation” starting the morning of the shooting that Boston Police homicide detectives and Suffolk prosecutors were able to identify and arrest Chukwuezi a little over a week later, Pappas said.

“It’s been almost 18 months since the defendant made the knowing and conscious decision to arm himself with a .380 semiautomatic handgun,” Pappas told the court. “This defendant is now out of time. There is no more time to say that everyone is mistaken, no more time to say it’s not me in the video … You know that this particular defendant is out of time, ladies and gentlemen.”

Following closing arguments, Judge Linda Giles instructed jurors on the relevant law. If jurors do not reach unanimous verdicts today, they will return to courtroom 806 tomorrow morning.

Catherine Rodriguez is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Chukwuezi is represented by attorney John Moss.