Five Buffalo residents were arraigned Thursday on an indictment accusing them of conspiring to kill a witness before he could testify in a murder trial, with four of the five facing first-degree murder charges. The witness, 23-year-old Willraw Morrison, was shot and killed on Krupp Avenue in March 2025, months after surviving an earlier shooting that prosecutors say was tied to the same scheme.
Charges Vary Across the Five Defendants
According to btpm.org, a total of five defendants were arraigned on the indictment Thursday, with four of them charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree conspiracy. Morrison, then 23, was expected to testify in July 2025 in the murder trial of Lamarrio Clark, the outlet reported. The named defendants include Lamarrio A. Clark, 29; Dayshawn J. Brazier, 35; James Barnwell, 27; and Angela Bowser, 25, according to audacy.com, which also reported that Clark and Brazier go by the nicknames “Bolo” and “Day Day,” respectively.
A fifth defendant, Amos Murray, 24, faces a disputed charge: btpm.org reported he was charged with one count of second-degree conspiracy, while audacy.com reported his charge as one count of second-degree murder. Both outlets are cited here because the discrepancy could not be resolved. All five defendants are being held without bail and are scheduled to return for a pretrial conference on Dec. 11, per btpm.org's reporting.
Two Shootings More Than Six Months Apart
Prosecutors say Morrison was targeted twice. The first attack came on Sept. 12, 2024, when he was shot several times on Ashley Street in Buffalo and survived, according to wkbw.com. Then, on March 19, 2025, Morrison was shot and killed on the first block of Krupp Avenue around 1:30 p.m., officials said, as reported by News 4 Buffalo.
Dayshawn Brazier is accused of hiring another person to carry out the 2024 attack on Morrison, officials said, and he faces an additional charge of attempted first-degree murder tied to the Ashley Street shooting, the station's report notes. The indictment alleges the broader conspiracy was aimed at preventing Morrison from testifying against Clark in the murder case that was headed to trial.
The Underlying Murder Case
The trial Morrison was expected to testify in involved Lamarrio Clark, who was accused in the killing of Corbin Kinsey on Warring Avenue on the Fourth of July in 2023. Clark ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter in August, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by five years of post-release supervision, per the same account from wkbw.com.
The gaps between Morrison's two shootings, his eventual death, and this week's indictment leave several questions open. No primary indictment, court docket, or Erie County District Attorney's Office record was made available detailing the specific alleged role each of the five defendants played beyond the allegations against Brazier, and it remains unclear what will happen procedurally after the December pretrial conference. No statements from defense attorneys or the defendants themselves have been reported.
