Trial opens for accused Haverford Township killer, but motive remains a mystery

Robin Baysmore had just survived a harrowing encounter near his home in Overbrook Park — a confrontation with a man who had been casing homes in the area and ended up spraying bullets into Baysmore’s Infiniti sedan.

And before Baysmore went to sleep that night in July 2017, he saw a picture of that same man on the news: Police also were accusing him of fatally shooting a 29-year-old man that day outside a Haverford Township apartment building.

“In my mind, I couldn’t believe this individual would go to [Haverford Township] and commit another crime,” Baysmore testified Monday in Delaware County Court.

Baysmore’s comments from the witness stand in Media opened the trial of Derrick Rollins, now 25, who is charged with shooting at Baysmore and his neighbor in Philadelphia, then driving into Haverford Township and fatally shooting Temple University graduate John Le.

The crime captured attention throughout the region, in part because it seemed so random. Police have said Rollins did not know any of the people at whom he shot. And they said it did not seem as if Rollins had taken much more than a cell phone from Le, who lived in Narberth with his family and was going to a friend’s apartment after playing disc golf.

Motive remained a mystery Monday afternoon. Assistant District Attorney Michael Hill did not specify during his opening statement why Rollins may have fired his weapon.

It also was not clear how Rollins might defend himself. Rollins’ lawyer, Kevin M. O’Neill, deferred his opening statement until later in the trial. Before the jury was sworn in, O’Neill and Rollins told Judge John P. Capuzzi Sr. that they might seek to prove that Rollins was so intoxicated or mentally challenged at the time that he could not have intended to kill anyone. Such a strategy could spare him a mandatory life sentence, but Rollins would have to acknowledge involvement in the crimes.

Rollins — who wore a suit and tie Monday and sat quietly during most of the afternoon’s testimony — was arrested in Georgia in 2017 after a weeks-long manhunt led authorities to an apartment complex just outside Atlanta.

Le, a graduate of Lower Merion High School, had been scheduled to play in a tennis match at the time of the shooting but it had been canceled by bad weather. Before he was shot, he walked from the Original Eagle Pizza shop on the 2300 block of Haverford Road to a friend’s apartment on that block.

Testimony is expected to resume Tuesday morning, and the trial is expected to last at least several days.

Rollins faces charges including first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, robbery, and weapons offenses. If convicted of first-degree murder, he would receive a mandatory life sentence.