Martin Paulk II was a 23-year-old musician from Syracuse who was fatally shot on the city’s North Side on a Tuesday in early January 2014. As he lay dying he gave police a dying declaration identifying one of his alleged attackers by the name Cito. A witness reported seeing two men open fire.

The investigation led to the arrests of George Cito Colon and Alfred Merc Thomas. On September 3, 2014, a jury convicted George Colon of Paulk’s murder and acquitted Alfred Thomas. About a month after the verdict Thomas posted on Facebook claiming responsibility for the shooting and even uploaded a video of the crime scene, asserting his guilt and Colon’s innocence.

Those social media posts were later seized by federal authorities and cited in a separate federal prosecution for being a felon in possession of ammunition; a judge referenced the admissions when ordering Thomas jailed pending the federal case. Was anyone in the neighborhood aware of disputes or people with grievances against Martin Paulk II before that January shooting?