FORT WAYNE – When Fort Wayne police officer Benjamin MacDonald took Patrick R. Fluker into custody in the early morning of Sept. 3, 2010, he noted in his report that the then-19-year-old said he hadn’t hurt anyone.

It struck MacDonald as strange, so much so he noted it in his report. At the time, the police were responding to the area of Broadway and Parkview Avenue after a nearby resident reported the sound of gunshots.

When MacDonald found Fluker, he was urinating on the side of a building. In his pockets were a pocketknife and miscellaneous papers, including paperwork that appeared to come from inside the glove compartment of a car and had someone else’s name on it, as well as a receipt from a Walmart purchase the day before.

Other police working in the area found the naked, still-warm body of 29-year-old Tiffany Mendez.

She had been shot once, and 9 mm shell casings were found at the scene.

On Tuesday, Allen County prosecutors began presenting their case against Fluker, now 20, charged with murder in Mendez’s death as well as receiving stolen auto parts, in connection to a Cadillac found near the scene.

MacDonald testified Tuesday, telling the Allen Superior Court jury that he noticed a man fitting the description of someone seen in the area, heading away from the stolen car, walking down Broadway.

MacDonald said he turned all his lights off and followed, losing sight of the man under the train tracks but spotting him later, urinating on the side of a building. According to court documents, when crime scene technicians searched the building later, they found a 9 mm handgun and a box of 9 mm Winchester ammunition on the roof.

The receipt police found in Fluker’s pocket was for a $13.47 purchase of 9 mm Winchester ammunition on Sept. 2, 2010, according to court documents.

Prosecutors played an in-car video recording taken after Fluker was placed into the back of MacDonald’s police car.

When a dispatcher came on the radio and said the car fit the description of one stolen earlier, Fluker became obviously distressed and spun an odd story about how the car came to be in his possession.

Sounding nervous and struggling not to cry, he told MacDonald three men picked him up earlier in a white pickup truck, then gave him the Cadillac outright.

Fluker had the keys to the Cadillac around his neck on a lanyard.

Allen County Deputy Prosecutor Stacey Speith told the jury during her opening statement that Fluker stole the car, had sex with Mendez and then killed her – using the ammunition he bought from Walmart – while driving the stolen car.

During her opening statement, however, Fluker’s defense attorney, Michelle Kraus, said the defense was conceding the Cadillac was stolen from a Richards restaurant after its owner left the keys inside. And although Fluker did have sex with Mendez, he did not kill her, Kraus said.

The trial is expected to continue through Thursday.

rgreen@jg.net