A 65-year-old man in a wheelchair is on trial for murder after a fight over $70 worth of cigarettes allegedly led to a fatal shooting inside an East Baltimore senior complex.

Assistant State’s Attorney Victoria Yeager claims Norman Waker gunned down one neighbor and shot another inside the Pleasant View Gardens senior living facility. Waker’s public defender says he fired in self-defense after being threatened.

The Feb. 20 shooting left Clyde Barnes, 79, dead and Vance Winston Bey, 73, wounded. Waker is charged with first- and second-degree murder and first- and second-degree attempted murder.

Winston Bey testified Wednesday that he heard an unusually loud bang in the apartment across the hall around 10:30 a.m.

He pushed open the door to Apartment 213 to find Barnes lying on the living room sofa, covered with blood and a man in a wheelchair before him.

Upon asking what happened, Winston Bey said Waker told him, “I think he’s having a heart attack” before turning around and, “Boom!” shooting him in the neck.

Winston Bey said he fell forward on his stomach and felt the wheels of the wheelchair pause beside him as Waker’s hand reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.

Winston Bey said he pulled himself up and into his apartment across the hall, where his brother had been waiting for him. That was where first responders later found him on the floor of the apartment’s entryway, suffering from the gunshot wound that has left him with nerve damage.

Linda Fifer, who has lived in the apartment beside Barnes for a little over a year, testified she was watching TV when she heard the bang. She asked Winston Bey, who was in the hallway, to check on Barnes.

It was about 10 minutes later when she heard the second set of shots ring out and peeked out of her door to see Waker passing by.

“He’s OK,” Fifer heard Waker tell her.

Minutes before the shooting, surveillance footage presented by the prosecution showed Waker moving quickly in his motorized wheelchair, leaving the first-floor elevator to do a lap around the lobby and security desk.

Footage of the second floor showed Waker, a resident of the fourth floor, coming and going around the time of the shooting.

Autopsy reports presented by Maryland Assistant Medical Examiner Edernst Noncent suggested the three bullets that killed Barnes were shot more than 3 feet away from him.

On Thursday, public defender Matthew Connell said, he plans to have Waker testify that it was Barnes who falsely claimed Waker owed him money and threatened to “bust his head” with a 40-caliber handgun. This, the defense claims, is what prompted Waker to tear away the gun and shoot Barnes.