According to the Essex County prosecutor's office, Scott and others with him picked up Everett Russ, who was standing outside a bar with a friend. Scott asked Russ to take him to a drug dealer, so Russ led Scott to an apartment belonging to Leo Skinner, who planned to buy drugs from a building next door. While in the next building, Scott, Russ, Skinner, and William Spinks—one of the men traveling with Scott—took the elevator up but held it for Yvonne Barrett, who was headed to the same apartment they were. Skinner did not want a crowd at this apartment, so he stopped the elevator at the eighth floor. Spinks then pulled out a handgun and ordered Barrett and Skinner out; Scott stepped off as well, while Russ took the elevator down to wait in the car with another member of Scott's group. Scott received the gun from Spinks and pistol-whipped Skinner, ordered him to strip, and threatened to throw him off the building over concerns he would tell police. Afterward, Spinks pointed the gun at Barrett and took her to her sister's tenth-floor apartment, where $283 and bags containing a white powder substance were stolen. Scott then shot Russ in his car to prevent him from telling police. Russ' body was pushed out of the car, which then sped off, and a nearby motorist wrote down the license plate number, which came back to Scott's car. Newark police located the car and found blood stains and bullet holes. At his second trial in 1981, the prosecutor presented a slightly different version of events, attesting that Scott went into the building alone, robbed Barrett and assaulted Skinner before shooting Russ, who was expecting to receive drugs as well.
