GRAND RAPIDS, MI – In a recorded police interview, Willie Bryant Jr. denied killing a gas-station clerk but admitted he had been at that Marathon station shortly before the shooting.

Bryant, 34, told investigators he didn’t know why he had been arrested but acknowledged he heard that police were looking for him in the May killing of Shannon Rozanski-Schoen, 48.

“What’s up, man?” Bryant asked investigators, in a video played for a Kent County Circuit Court jury on Thursday, March 14.

He told detectives that he was in the store, on 28th Street SW, just west of Buchanan Avenue Wyoming, before the 6 a.m. killing on May 21. He was arrested at McDonald’s on Michigan Street NE at College Avenue on the night of the killing.

At Grand Rapids police headquarters, police told him that he was seen on surveillance cameras when the killings happened. Bryant admitted going into the store twice.

He said he was there “right before that s--- happened. It was right before the s--- happened. I ain’t gonna lie to you, bro.... I ain’t killed nobody, bro," he told detectives from Grand Rapids and Wyoming police departments.

Chief Assistant Kent County Prosecutor Monica Janiskee says Bryant is shown on video shooting the victim in the chest, then the head, after she closed the cash register when he pulled out a handgun.

Police found his fingerprints on the counter and DNA on a Mello Yellow bottle he bought at the store. He then he carried a water bottle to the the counter before he shot the woman, leaving his fingerprints on the bottle, the prosecution says.

The case is going to the jury this afternoon.

Janiskee, in her closing argument, said that Bryant “executed” Rozanski-Schoen in an “absolutely cold-blooded and horrific” crime.

“You have seen, uninterrupted, surveillance video of the entire incident,” Janiskee said. She apologized to jurors for having to show a video recording of the killing.

She also played an audio recording of an inmate at the Kent County Jail who happened to call Bryan the night of the killing. He told the caller he “caught a body,” and was, at the moment, in a high-speed chase with police. Police lost sight of the car.

The defense said that the evidence didn’t prove that Bryant was the one depicted in the video recordings. The defense also said police rushed to judgment and didn’t look at others.

“It never went beyond, 'Oh, we think it’s Mr. Bryant,” defense attorney Michael Anderson told jurors.

He said that Bryant has “always” denied participating in the killing. He said the prosecution relied on unreliable witnesses, including a co-defendant.

Anderson’s request for a directed verdict of acquittal was rejected by Judge Mark Trusock.

Janiskee said jurors saw the crime unfold, from the time Bryant shows up at the station with his cousin, Gary Bryant, 59, who was driving a distinctive white Cadillac, to the moment the Cadillac leaves the scene. Another man, who was not charged, was with the Bryants and testified against Willie Bryant.

The robber shot the victim in the chest, then the head, after she closed the cash register when the robber pulled out the gun. He then tried to rob the store owner but fled with no money. Bryant told police that the victim probably would not have been shot if she hadn’t closed the cash register. He said the clerk should have handed over the money. It wasn’t hers and would have been covered by insurance.

He speculated the robber “was just hard up” for cash.

Rozanski-Schoen had worked at the convenience store for about six years. She worked the night shift and knew all of the regulars. She was as a valued, trusted worker, store owner Chad Bussa said.

Gary Bryant, the getaway driver, is scheduled to be sentenced this afternoon for assault with intent to rob while armed, reduced from felony murder.

Willie Bryant is charged with felony murder, open murder and armed robbery.