Several witnesses testified in court Wednesday that a Lyndora man accused of killing his girlfriend did so over an argument.

The nonjury murder trial of Ishemer Ramsey, 23, continued into its third day featuring several witnesses, and two co-defendants, who knew Ramsey before he was arrested in 2017 for allegedly killing his girlfriend, Melissa Barto, on June 8, 2017.

The trial is being heard by Common Pleas Judge William Shaffer

The day opened with a friend of Ramsey's, Joshua Bowser, recalling the events that led to Ramsey allegedly borrowing his tan Pontiac Grand Am to dump Barto's body in a Lawrence County Field in June, 2017.

The day's proceedings also had two key witnesses offering conflicting testimony about how many times Barto was shot.With a nonjury trial, it is up to Shaffer to determine if Ramsey is guilty.On June 11, state police pulled Bowser out of his job to question him.Bowser testified under direct questioning from District Attorney Terri Schultz that he thought police wanted him “for me being a dumb kid.”But when they asked him about his relationship with Ramsey, Bowser knew it was for a much more serious issue. The Butler woman's body had been discovered the previous day on a Lawrence County farm.Bowser is charged with felony hindering apprehension and misdemeanor conspiracy counts of abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence after allegedly allowing Ramsey to use his vehicle to transport Barto's body.Bowser explained Wednesday how the arrangement was made while a packed courtroom with Barto's family, Ramsey's family and curious onlookers listened.Bowser testified that on June 8 he and friend Nathan Lewis Brown Jr. met up with Ramsey at a parking lot in Butler's Island area. There, Ramsey got out of his silver Hyundai Tiburon and got into Bowser's Pontiac Grand Am.

“Ramsey goes, 'wooo, we need to talk, boys,' ” Bowser said. “You guys aren't going to believe this — I killed six people.”Bowser said he brushed it off as a joke.“(Brown) starts freaking out a bit. He's a bit of a hypochondriac, and I wish I had been like that, too,” Bowser said.Bowser and Ramsey got out of the Grand Am and got into the Tiburon.“I noticed mud all over inside the car,” Bowser said. “(Ramsey) was covered in mud as well.”Bowser said that Ramsey told him that he had gotten into an argument with his girlfriend, Barto, earlier that day.“I think she's cheating on me, man, and I'm going to find the guy,” Bowser recalled Ramsey telling him.During the argument, Barto began to repeatedly slap him, according to Bowser, and Ramsey took out his gun and slapped it onto the roof of the car, causing it to accidentally go off.Bowser said he still doubted Ramsey had killed someone.He agreed to let Ramsey use his car. After the exchange, Bowser said he and Brown went to Herman to continue their evening plans.“We drove out to Herman's and had a good ol' time till 2 a.m.,” Bowser said, and the next day, the Grand Am was back where Bowser had left it for Ramsey.

Ramsey's lawyer, Christopher Capozzi, questioned Bowser's motives.“You're confronting 11 years in prison as you sit here, correct?” Capozzi said.“Correct,” Bowser said, but claims he didn't testify to get a lenient deal from prosecutors.“I'm accepting whatever charges I'm facing,” Bowser said.Bowser told Capozzi that he didn't believe Ramsey had committed murder.“So you're having a good time knowing that a woman was killed,” Capozzi said.“No, I didn't believe Ramsey,” Bowser said, even though he testified that Ramsey said he needed the Grand Am to move Barto's body.Capozzi wondered why Bowser never called police.“But instead of doing that, what you told him is, don't get my car dirty. That's what you did, right?” Capozzi said.“Correct,” Bowser said.Brown, a friend of Bowser's, recollected for the court the events of the night.“Ramsey's eating chicken in the backseat like a psycho person,” Brown said.Capozzi objected to Brown's mental diagnosis without a degree in psychology, and Shaffer admonished Brown.The next day, Brown said, he and his family used the car in Erie and he never noticed anything odd about the vehicle after Ramsey used it. He didn't notice a foul odor, as troopers had previously said they observed, coming from the Grand Am.Brown's testimony wasn't the only conflicting part of Wednesday's hearing.

Schultz called Allegheny County Medical Examiner Todd Lukasevic to testify about an autopsy on Barto that he performed June 13.Lukasevic said that he found an entry and exit point for a bullet in Barto's head.The bullet, he said, traveled from left, where it entered the front temple, and exited on the right, behind the ear. Because of decomposition, Lukasevic testified, he couldn't tell if the shot was made before or after Barto's death. But ultimately he deemed that her cause of death was a gunshot wound.He said that “all the other organs were of a healthy 26-year-old” and there was no indication that she would have died from anything else.He determined that Barto had been dead for at least two days by the time he examined her on June 13.“In my opinion, it was longer than two days,” Lukasevic said.

But James Howard-George, who testified while handcuffed Wednesday in a jail jumpsuit, said Ramsey shot Barto three times.In Howard-George's telling, he was forced to be an accomplice to Ramsey under threat of death.He testified that he also wasn't looking for a lenient deal.At the time of Barto's murder, Howard-George was living on 402 W. Wayne St., which is in the Island part of Butler.On the morning of June 8, Howard-George said, Ramsey woke him up and wanted to talk about Barto. Ramsey told him he suspected Barto was cheating on him.Later that day, Ramsey came back to Howard-George with another request.Howard-George said Ramsey told him that he and Barto got into a physical fight. In Ramsey's Tiburon, Howard-George said Ramsey punched her and then shot her.“He caught her with his ring and then fired twice at her. She slumped in the seat and she was saying, 'you shot me,' so he shot her again,” Howard-George said.“Ramsey pulled out his gun — he's always got a gun on him — and he told me that what happened to her is going to happen to me,” Howard-George said. He testified that he was also worried Ramsey would kill Howard-George's live-in girlfriend and the son they had together.So he got into Ramsey's blood-stained Tiburon — “it was all over” — and the two went to an area in Mars where Ramsey had left Barto's body, Howard-George testified.“We walk over to a dead body. Blood in her mouth,” Howard-George said. For a while, Howard-George said he stared in disbelief at the body of Barto, processing the situation.“The blood looked like it was boiling. Green flies were around her scalp where the hole in her head must've been,” Howard-George said.

That night, they drove to Bowser's place to get tools and remove the blood-soaked passenger seat of the Tiburon, Howard-George said, adding that they removed the door panel on the passenger side and removed two bullets from inside.State police later would discover one bullet in the door. Then, Howard- George said, they used Bowser's Grand Am to pick up Barto's body in the Mars-area hiding spot. But before that, they stopped at Walmart for tarp, rope and gloves.According to Howard-George, Ramsey tied red rope around Barto's ankles and then put her in the trunk.When they got to Lawrence County, Howard- George said Ramsey dragged Barto's body out by the rope around her ankles , doused her body in lighter fluid and set it ablaze.Capozzi wasn't convinced that Howard-George wasn't seeking a lenient deal and questioned Howard-George's motives.“I'm not getting anything for this,” Howard-George said. “I don't expect the (district attorney) to do anything. The only person I expect anything from is my lawyer.”

Capozzi pointed out several contradictions between Howard-George's testimony and his statement to police at the time. Capozzi also brought the court's attention to a conversation Howard-George had with fellow inmate Wayne McCracken, an Ambridge man who is serving a lengthy sentence on drug-related charges. Capozzi said that Howard-George told McCracken that he witnessed Barto's murder.Howard-George denied that conversation ever took place.The trial will continue Friday.

Missy Barto.