It was an emotional day in a Jefferson County courtroom as jurors and family members of 24-year-old Raven Swain, reportedly killed in a “hit,” viewed crime scene photos.

Swain’s boyfriend, 27-year-old Demarcus Chandler, is charged with capital murder-for-hire in Swain’s 2020 shooting death in a Birmingham park.

Prosecutors Isabella Colombo and Charissa Henrichs contend Chandler, who has a lengthy criminal history and is locked up in state prison on parole violations from previous crimes, paid 28-year-old Solomon Minatee III $8,000 to kill Swain.

Chandler allegedly orchestrated the murder because he believed Swain had “ripped him off” while he was in prison, they said.

Chandler’s attorneys from the Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office, led by Blair Shores, claim Swain’s family never liked her dating Chandler and quickly named him to police as the likely person who would want Swain dead with no proof of his involvement.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Streety is presiding over the trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Birmingham police Sgt. Cale Glenn, who was a crime scene investigator at the time of Swain’s murder, documented for the jury the dozens of photos he took the night Swain was killed in Underwood Park on Birmingham’s Southside.

The photos included images of Swain slumped over in the driver’s seat of her car, that had rolled into some bushes after she was shot. The window was down and her door was open.

The images also showed close ups of Swain’s wounds. She had been shot under the left arm, with bullets penetrating her heart and lung, and was pronounced dead on the scene.

Family members were warned that the photos would be shown and were given the opportunity to leave the courtroom, but they opted to stay. A few wept quietly as the pictures were displayed on a large screen.

Glenn testified he recovered five 9mm shell casings from the scene.

The sergeant’s testimony came in the second day of Chandler’s trial.

Other testimony Wednesday included witnesses who lived or worked nearby where the shooting happened.

One of them, an elderly woman, lived at Episcopal Place at the time of the killing. She told jurors she was watching television when she heard the shots.

“I sat there for a minute and then curiosity got to me,” the witness said. “I walked to the window and saw a young man coming up the sidewalk.”

“He was not just walking, he was hurrying along,” she said. “Something about the way he was walking caught my attention.”

The first witness to testify in the trial was Swain’s mother, Lolita Braxton, who testified Tuesday.

Braxton told jurors that she found out that her daughter was shot from her son, Richard Braxton.

In opening statements, prosecutors said Chandler, just moments after the shooting, began reaching out to Swain’s family and friends to tell them she had been.

Braxton rushed to the park.

“I tried to run over (to her) and the officers stopped me,‘’ she said.

Braxton testified that her daughter kept her relationship with Chandler secret from her. “She knew that I wouldn’t approve,” she said.

Braxton told jurors that Swain had filed a domestic violence report against Chandler in May of 2019.

Afterward, on May 11, 2019, she said, Chandler came to their home to return Swain’s cell phone and said she had some of his “stuff.”

“He was assuring me nothing was going to happen,” Braxton said.

But when Chandler left, she said, gunshots were fired into the air.

The next day, which was Mother’s Day 2019, the family was barbecuing at Braxton’s home when gunfire again erupted.

“A rain of gunfire came into my home,” Braxton told jurors. The bullets also struck Swain’s car, but no one was injured.

Prosecutors still have about a dozen witnesses to call to the stand. Testimony will resume Thursday.

Chandler was also charged in 2024 with conspiracy to commit murder of an Alabama Department of Corrections lieutenant who, at the direction of Birmingham investigators in Swain’s murder, searched Chandler’s cell and found a contraband cell phone authorities said was used to arrange the hit.

His charge in that case has been forwarded to a grand jury for indictment consideration.