Accused murderer Anthony A. Parish could only watch as his former friend and apparent confidant told an Allen Superior Court jury Tuesday that Parish had matter-of-factly confessed to him to killing 30-year-old Antoine J. Woods last August for a silver chain and medallion.

“He said that he did a petty murder,” Rico Parrish told Deputy Prosecutor Steve Godfrey during the first day of the three-day murder trial. Anthony Parish is accused of fatally shooting Woods outside the Dove Shack Bar on Lumbard Street in the early- morning hours of Aug. 25.

But that wasn't all Rico Parrish divulged.

Jurors watched a several-minute-long video featuring Rico Parrish and another man rapping while Anthony Parish and several other people stand around them. At one point in the video, Anthony Parish brandishes and flashes a .38-caliber revolver - the same caliber of handgun used to gun down Woods less than an hour after Rico Parrish claimed the video was taped.

Rico Parrish also led prosecutors - in the week leading up to trial - to a MySpace picture, taken a month after Woods was killed, of himself, Anthony Parish and two of their friends, which depicts Anthony Parish wearing the same necklace that was stolen from Woods' body.

Rico Parrish's information prompted Anthony Parish's defense attorney, John Bohdan, to question the man's motives, leading almost into accusations.

Bohdan asked Rico Parrish what the man was referring to in the rap video shown in court when Rico Parrish said, “bodies gettin' dropped,” as he made hand gestures as if he were firing a handgun. Rico Parrish told him he was simply free-styling.

Bohdan then questioned if Rico Parrish has ever had access to Anthony Parish's car, in which Fort Wayne Police Officer Raquel Foster located a .38-caliber revolver during a traffic stop Sept. 3, 2008. Ballistics testing revealed that that handgun was used to shoot Woods. Rico Parrish said he'd never been in the vehicle alone.

Bohdan then asked whether Rico Parrish had ever bragged to Mack E. Porter (who himself has a pending murder trial) about being Woods' killer, asking him, “Did you ever tell Mack Porter, with regard to the Dove Shack incident, ‘I put that demonstration down?'” a phrase Rico Parrish translated to the court as meaning to fatally shoot someone. He again denied the claim.

All of Bohdan's questioning of Rico Parrish supported his opening statements Tuesday, in which he told the jury Anthony Parish is a “scapegoat” and that Fort Wayne Police and Allen County Prosecutors “settled on the wrong one.”

Not so, maintains prosecutors, saying the necklace found in Anthony Parish's home by Fort Wayne Police and the ties to his .38-caliber revolver are enough to convict.

Jurors also heard from several of Woods' family members, the last ones to see him before he walked out of the Dove Shack Bar to take a phone call inside his car. Each of those people said Woods was wearing the necklace in question, the one Anthony Parish had in his possession when he met back up with Rico Parrish later in the night, according to Rico Parrish's testimony.

Jurors also heard from several responding officers and crime scene technicians, who described the scene and explained in detail how evidence was taken and stored.

Parish also faces charges of felony murder, robbery and carrying a handgun without a license.

Parish, who was arrested Oct. 10 after a standoff with police, has already been sentenced to 91 1/2 years in prison for two convictions for attempted murder and one for criminal recklessness.