RALEIGH - Jakiem Wilson, when talking to a sheriff's investigator about his dead wife, suddenly volunteered that he was wearing the same clothes as he was the night she was killed.

That came after a sobbing Wilson told an emergency dispatcher that his wife, Nneka, was dead and that a threatening message left behind in her blood told Jakiem Wilson that he was next.

The reason, he told the sheriff's investigator, was that he was a member of the Folks, or Crips, street gang and rival Bloods gang members were after him, according to testimony given Monday by Detective Kenny Blackwell in the first day of Wilson's capital murder trial.

" 'They didn't have to do this to her,' " said Blackwell, recounting Wilson's remarks.

But Wilson's story soon unraveled. He was arrested by the end of the day, hours after he had initially reported his wife's death and a day after Wake prosecutors and sheriff's investigators think he killed her on Feb. 12, 2007.

Wilson, 24, is accused of stabbing his wife to death and then recruiting two teenage friends to help clean up and make it look as if an intruder had killed the mother of two. Nneka Wilson, 24, a 2001 Enloe High School graduate, was found face down in her blood in the couple's kitchen with stab wounds on her neck and chest and cuts on her hands. The couple's two small children were at home but were unhurt.

Wake prosecutors continued pressing their case despite a ruling earlier Monday by Superior Court Henry Hight Jr. that excluded a large amount of physical evidence taken from Wilson's home at 6637 Eagles Crossing Drive. The reason: Hight ruled that sheriff's investigators didn't have enough probable cause when they wrote a two-page affidavit that failed to mention Nneka Wilson was killed by violent means and was signed by another judge before the detectives searched the couple's home near Wendell.

Evidence seized during the search included a bloody footprint; blood samples from a living room wall, a table leg in the dining room, a comforter in the master bedroom and tiles on the kitchen floor; bleached clothing; six letters; two silver hatchets; a shotgun; and numerous swabs of DNA evidence, according to a copy of the search warrant.

In addition, investigators seized a computer, seeking evidence that Wilson had surfed the Internet shortly after his wife's death.

But in this murder trial, the question of who killed Nneka Wilson has already been answered for jurors.

Jakiem Wilson's attorneys have already told jurors that he caused her death but suggested the stabbing occurred in a fit of passion as opposed to the premeditated plan that Wake prosecutors have described as part of their push for a death penalty conviction.

"Jakiem does not deny that he committed horrible acts that caused Nneka's death," Amos Tyndall told prosecutors in his opening arguments.

If jurors agree with Tyndall, Wilson could escape the death penalty sentence that prosecutors are seeking if he's convicted of first-degree murder.

In opening arguments, Wake prosecutors told jurors that Jakiem Wilson planned to kill Nneka because he couldn't handle the responsibility of having a family. Two teenage friends, Jamie Holder and Roderick Howell, will tell jurors how Wilson asked them to clean up evidence and stage a scene that made it look as if an intruder had killed Nneka Wilson, Wake Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Davis said in her opening arguments.

Jakiem Wilson also told friends how he killed his wife, Davis said.

"He re-enacted for them how he killed Nneka that night," she said.

Jurors have already heard from Claudette Hill, Nneka Wilson's mother, and listened to a recorded copy of the 911 call that Jakiem Wilson made when he claimed to have come home to find his wife dead.

A Wake County jury last sent a defendant to death row in July 2007, when Byron Waring was convicted of murder in the death of Lauren Redman, 22, in November 2005. His co-defendant, Joseph Sanderlin, is also facing the death penalty but has not yet been tried.

The Wilson trial will continue today.

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