With three of his fellow Kingsmen sitting just a few feet away, it's a safe bet Jimmy Ray Fritts wanted to be anywhere but on a witness stand in Buffalo.
He didn't want to testify that Andre Jenkins, one of his "brothers" on trial, admitted to the double murder at the core of the case.
And Fritts certainly didn't want to tell a jury that former Kingsmen President David Pirk ordered the 2014 killings.
At the constant prodding of prosecutors, Fritts, a Kingsmen Motorcycle Club member from Tennessee, testified that Pirk's involvement became evident during a near-fatal confrontation between Jenkins and four Kingsmen angry over the assassination-style murders in North Tonawanda.
"He walked in and we pulled our weapons," he told the jury. "He was scared. I would be, too."
Now 68, Fritts said that Jenkins, upon seeing the drawn guns, claimed the killings were in self-defense and begged them to make one phone call before killing him.
"He said, call Dave Pirk," Fritts told the jury.
He said Michael Long, one of the four Kingsmen inside the Tennessee clubhouse that day, did what Jenkins asked and called the then-national Kingsmen president.
"We're fixing to kill him," Long told Pirk, according to Fritts. "Are you good with that?"
"What did Pirk say?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph M. Tripi.
"He said, 'Let him go,' " Fritts answered.
Fritts' testimony is the latest chapter in a three-month trial revolving around Pirk's role in the murders of Kingsmen Paul Maue and Daniel "DJ" Szymanski in September of 2014.
The Kingsmen Motorcycle Club on Oliver Street in North Tonawanda, where two members were killed execution-style on Sept. 6, 2014. (Derek Gee/News file photo)
