EDGARD — The courthouse gallery in Edgard was quiet and tense Wednesday during a playback of the 911 call made by LaPlace Feed & Supply owner Connie Finckbeiner immediately after a February 2014 armed robber killed her husband and left her with a gunshot wound to the head.

Anguished cries of, “God, help! Please!” and “My husband is dead!” were heard by a jury and more than 50 in attendance on day 3 of the LaPlace Feed Store homicide trial.

Finckbeiner forgot she made the 911 call, but the witness account she outlined to the operator in 2014 remains the same today: Steven Finckbeiner was killed; two young, black men were at the scene; and the taller of the two men was the one to fire the gun as the other stood outside.

Prosecutors — aided Wednesday by testimony from current and former St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Officer investigators — seeks to prove the man Finckbeiner saw with a gun and cash register in his hand was defendant Charles McQuarter III.

McQuarter is charged with second degree murder and armed robbery with a firearm, and his trial is expected to end as early as Thursday evening, according to Judge J. Sterling Snowdy.

“We may be able to complete this tomorrow if everything works out,” Snowdy said. “I’m not making any promises.”

Defense attorneys Lisa Parker and Randy Dukes cross examined a dozen witnesses Wednesday to prove no one except Finckbeiner saw McQuarter shoot or even hold a gun the day of the deadly encounter.

Dukes suggested it could be a case of mistaken identity, alluding to two persons of interest detained at the beginning of the Feed Store investigation and released soon after.

Special Agent Anthony Goudia, former lead investigator on the case, was on the stand far longer than 11 other witnesses, with state and defense questioning stretching well past two hours.

Goudia detailed his experience in the investigation prior to leaving SJSO for the Secret Service in 2016. On the stand, he told a prosecution led by attorneys Lea Hall Jr. and Hugo Holland that McQuarter was developed as a suspect using video surveillance captured in the vicinity of the Feed Store.

Goudia and Sgt. Staty Lewis of the St. John Sheriff’s Office reviewed four paper bags of evidence containing red and black tennis shoes, black pants, a bandana and a solid black long-sleeved shirt collected from a search of McQuarter’s residence.

According to Lewis and Goudia, the articles closely matched clothing observed from surveillance video, as well as Finckbeiner’s account of the suspect wearing a shirt with long, black sleeves.

However, the shirt did not contain a screen print of a missing couple from Reserve, as seen by Goudia in surveillance footage and corroborated by Dracier Dewey, McQuarter’s alleged accomplice indicted in 2014 for involvement in the Feed Store burglarly-turned-homicide.

Dewey did not see McQuarter shoot the Finckbeiners. However, he testified that he heard gunshots when McQuarter was presumably the only customer in the store and saw him emerge soon after with a cash register in hand.

Dewey took the stand Tuesday in a khaki prison jumpsuit and said he and McQuarter visited the Feed Store Feb. 25, 2014, seeking shots for McQuarter’s three-week-old puppies.

After the Finckbeiners told them to come back when the puppies were old enough for shots, the two exited the store, according to Dewey. As he was leaving the premise, Dewey saw McQuarter return to the store and heard gunfire.

Witness testimony from Randy Dukes placed Dewey on West Second Street near the Animal Shelter, as described in his testimony.

Lewis and Cpl. Michael Shaeffer attested to a paper trail of debris linked to the cash register in the southbound area from the Feed Store, where video surveillance picked up Dewey walking and a man suspected to be McQuarter running with the register.

Former Sheriff’s Office employee Thomas Ricks corroborated Dewey’s account of throwing his red jacket into a residential garbage can while putting distance between himself and the gunfire.

Dewey’s older brother, Lance Dewey, entered the courtroom Wednesday morning. The jury was presented a recorded call between Lance, Dracier Dewey and their mother while Lance was incarcerated.

The call revealed Dewey’s family knew he was on the surveillance video on the news, along with another male who the family alleges was McQuarter. Dewey turned himself in and implicated McQuarter the next day.

Lance said his brother is “a good kid,” who has never gotten into trouble before he was arrested.

Defense attorney Dukes noted there was no blood or DNA evidence linked to McQuarter from the crime scene investigation. Goudia affirmed the statements but said it wasn’t uncommon to not find DNA evidence during an investigation.

Goudia went on to say, “At a minimum, the video shows some type of robbery occurred.”

The defense questioned Finckbeiner’s identification of McQuarter as the shooter more than a week after images of him being arrested were released in newspapers and on television.

There was some dissension over whether Finckbeiner gave a full description of the suspects’ recognizable hairstyles the day of the killing, as supported by some witnesses.

Others alleged her descriptions only went as far as stating a skin tone and using generic words such as “tall” and “short.”

Also called to the stand was Sgt. Michael Dean, who worked in the K-9 division at the time of the incident, and a hair stylist who McQuarter was supposed to visit the same day.

The trial continues at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Edgard Courthouse.

If convicted of second-degree murder, McQuarter will face life in prison at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. His armed robbery charge could result in a 10- to 99- year sentence.