MAYERSVILLE – The man accused of fatally shooting a Mayersville woman did so because she embarrassed him in front of his friends, prosecutors said in opening a rare murder trial here Wednesday.

Testimony later began in Issaquena County Circuit Court in the case against Kenny Hunt, 31, 4387 Whitehall Ave., Jackson, who is accused of murder in the Feb. 22, 2004, shooting death of Tabitha Walker, who was 32.

The trial is the second for homicide in the county since the 1970s, Circuit Clerk Erline Fortner said. About 25 spectators attended the trial in the county of 2,274 residents north of Warren County along the Mississippi River.

Walker’s body was found in her car, which was headed north on Grace Road about three to four miles north of Mayersville between about 12:15 a.m. and 12:26 a.m., authorities said.

&#8220Tabitha Walker was ambushed and executed,” Assistant District Attorney Mike Bonner said in his opening statement to jurors.

Hunt’s attorney, Michael Winfield of Vicksburg, said his client did not kill Walker.

Hunt and his nephew Christopher Hunt, 19, of Mayersville, were indicted together in January. Christopher Hunt remains charged, but is not on trial with his uncle and testified Wednesday as a witness for the prosecution.

&#8220He was going to commit the perfect murder,” Bonner said of Kenny Hunt.

Hunt had been embarrassed in front of his friends by Walker, who was larger than Hunt, when she pulled a gun on him in a club that was described as a gathering place for the county’s young adults.

&#8220He was obsessed with Tabitha Walker’s sister, Jennifer Faye Walker,” Bonner said of Hunt. &#8220He had taken a video of himself and Jennifer Walker having sex without her knowing it.”

Hunt was displaying that video to people in the club when Tabitha Walker and a friend of hers, Shanekia Williams, walked in, Bonner said.

&#8220She confronted him and told him to stop,” Bonner said, adding that that was when Walker pulled a gun on Hunt. &#8220He told her, ‘The next time you do that, I’m going to make you use it.’”.

Winfield denied the existence of such a tape and said no such confrontation occurred.

&#8220There’s no reason in the world why he would’ve killed that woman,” Winfield said.

Bonner said Hunt, with his friends and family, constructed an alibi that he was at Mardi Gras in New Orleans the night Walker was killed. Testimony of Christopher Hunt, Kenny Hunt’s brother Troy Piggs and others described the plan.

Piggs, who said he and Kenny Hunt had the same father, first gave investigators at least one false statement consistent with Hunt’s alibi, he testified. Around August, however, Piggs recanted and that was when Kenny Hunt’s plan began to unravel, Bonner argued.

&#8220He said he was going to get her before she got him,” Piggs said of Kenny Hunt. &#8220It was just that type of thing.”

Winfield countered that Piggs was himself originally a chief suspect in the crime.

&#8220What better way to shift the burden off of you than to say, ‘Oh, my brother did it’?” Winfield said.

Bonner said Piggs was telling the truth because &#8220he’s a man with a conscience.”

&#8220That is a conflict that is unbelievable to me,” Bonner said. &#8220Whether you tell the truth about what happened in a vicious murder or whether you cover for your brother.”

The trial had been set for earlier dates, including one in April. Spring planting was taking place then and the number of potential jurors who reported then was insufficient. With two potential jurors remaining, a jury was selected about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Bonner said. By order of the presiding judge, Isadore Patrick, the panel was sequestered during the trial in a Vicksburg hotel.

The jury heard from 12 prosecution witnesses Wednesday.

Bonner showed jurors a videotape Sheriff Richard Jones testified was made by investigators arriving at the scene, which was initially reported to his department as a wreck.

&#8220There’s nothing out there,” Bonner said of Grace Road. &#8220It is a road that drives through a field.”

A man who said he lives in Grace about a mile from where Walker was shot, Sonny Fortner, said he had just gone to bed shortly after midnight that night when he heard three shots in rapid succession, then a slight pause, and then two more shots.

State medical examiner Dr. Stephen Hayne testified that four shotgun pellets had been removed from Walker’s brain and that those pellets were introduced into evidence.

Jones said his department had little experience investigating homicides and requested outside help. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, a division of the department of public safety, helped with the investigation.

The two homicide cases that have gone to trial since the 1970s are not the only killings that have occurred in the county since then. A woman was found beaten to death in her apartment in May 2003. A Mayersville man pleaded guilty in that case.