NEWARK -- In a cramped interview room following his December 2013 arrest, Basim Henry told detectives he remembered hearing shots fired as his alleged co-conspirators struggled with Dustin Friedland in a parking deck at The Mall at Short Hills.
"This (expletive) wasn't supposed to happen," said Henry, clad in a Tyvek suit investigators had given him in place of clothes they'd seized as evidence.
Video of Henry's statement to detectives at the Essex County Prosecutor's Office was introduced Wednesday morning in his fourth day of trial before Superior Court Judge Michael L. Ravin in the killing of Friedland, a 30-year-old attorney from Hoboken.
Friedland was shot to death during a Dec. 15, 2013 carjacking at the upscale mall in Millburn.
Henry, 36, of South Orange, was indicted in September 2014 -- along with Kevin Roberts, Hanif Thompson and Karif Ford -- on charges of murder, felony murder, carjacking, conspiracy to commit carjacking and weapons offenses.
Roberts, Thompson and Ford are set to be tried separately, according to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.
In the taped interview, Henry -- the alleged getaway driver -- can be seen telling two detectives from the Essex County Homicide Task Force that the men had gone to the mall because "they just wanted a truck."
One of the two detectives who conducted the interview -- Prosecutor's Office Sgt. Luigi Corino, then with Newark police -- testified Wednesday that investigators had arrested Henry in the early morning hours of Dec. 21, 2013 at a motel in Easton, Pa., after the U.S. Marshals Service learned he was staying there.
Corino said investigators had linked Henry to the crime via the getaway vehicle, a GMC Suburban registered to Henry's home in South Orange that had been captured on surveillance footage fleeing the mall's parking structure.
After they spotted the Range Rover in the mall's parking deck, Henry told the detectives, Thompson and Roberts got out of the Suburban and approached the SUV on foot.
Friedland's wife, Jamie Schare Friedland, testified last week that the couple had just finished shopping at the mall when they were confronted by two of the men. The Range Rover they had driven to the mall belonged to Dustin's father, according to prosecutors.
Pressed by the detectives, Henry said he wasn't certain at the time whether the men intended to take a vehicle via strong-arm robbery or other means, but did say he had seen Thompson with a handgun earlier in the evening.
Henry told detectives he watched the men "wrestling, tussling" with Dustin Friedland for about four seconds before he started the SUV and began to drive off.
"It was at that time I heard a shot," he said. "I want to say two."
As Henry drove out of the parking structure with Ford, he said he saw the Range Rover pass him.
Henry said Thompson later called asking them to pick him up at an abandoned house on Renner Avenue in Newark, where he had stowed the Range Rover, telling Henry only that he had struck Friedland with the gun.
He testified Roberts later told him Thompson had shot Friedland, and that he accompanied Thompson to Dewey Street in Newark, where he stashed the weapon in a backyard.
A Prosecutor's Office detective previously testified that a later search of backyards and rooftops in the neighborhood by investigators failed to turn up any weapons.
Corino told the court that investigators obtained video footage showing the Suburban following a different Range Rover out of the mall's parking lot three days before the shooting.
A Turnpike Authority manager had testified Tuesday that the Suburban and that particular Range Rover were caught on camera and EZPass records entering and exiting the toll road during the same timeframe that night.
But under direct questioning by detectives, Henry can be seen in the video adamantly insisting that previous stalking incident "never" happened. He did, however, admit to having helped Thompson look for other vehicles in the days before the carjacking.
On cross examination by Henry's attorney, Michael Rubas, Corino testified that prior to the interview at the Prosecutor's Office, Henry had started to speak to investigators once on the drive from Easton to Newark.
That conversation ended, Corino said, after the detective reminded him of his Miranda rights.
Rubas pressed Corino for details, but the detective said he hadn't recorded the incident in his notes.
The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.