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WILKES-BARRE TWP. &mdash; Louisa Reyes said that the robbery that eventually led to Fred Boote&rsquo;s death wasn&rsquo;t supposed to happen that way.
				The 16-year-old &mdash; whose age is being kept from jurors in the trial of Reynaldo Mercado &mdash; testified through the bulk of Tuesday morning, describing the night as a planned robbery that went out of control after Mercado inexplicably became violent.
				Mercado is on trial this week for Boote&rsquo;s September 2018 homicide, along with related other charges stemming from the incidents that led to Boote&rsquo;s death.
				According Reyes, who was questioned by Assistant District Attorney Tony Ross on Tuesday, things were set in motion that evening due to Mercado&rsquo;s worries about money.
				Reyes, along with her mother Carmen Cardy and other family members, was living with Mercado at a home on Maffett Street at the time. According to her, on the night of Boote&rsquo;s death, Mercado came home from work, stressed and angry about not having enough money to pay bills.
				She said on the stand that Mercado began to hatch a plan to rob an elderly woman in the neighborhood. While Reyes said she initially attempted to convince Mercado to drop the plan, she eventually agreed to go along with it.
				The plan, she said, was ultimately similar to the one that they would later use at Boote&rsquo;s Donald Court home. Reyes said they planned to have her knock on the door, somehow talk her way in, and then eventually let Mercado in. That was foiled, though, when the woman didn&rsquo;t let her inside, she said.
				Reyes said Mercado was still itching to rob someone, so she mentioned Boote&rsquo;s home. Reyes and her mother had previously lived with Boote, and she said that she remembered that he was in the habit of not locking his doors. She said she told Mercado that it would be &ldquo;an easy in-and-out.&rdquo; She said she thought they would be able to get into the home and take some valuables without Boote even knowing they were there.
				Once they got to the home, she said she knocked on the door and gave Boote a story about some of her friends from school had abandoning her and needing to call her mother. Boote let her inside, and she said she left the door open. When Boote headed upstairs, presumably to get his cell phone, she said, she motioned to Mercado to come inside.
				Reyes said that she then followed Boote upstairs and she saw him send a text to her mother that he would be bringing her home &mdash; which was corroborated by Detective Dan Lewis of Plains Township, who performed the analysis of Boote&rsquo;s phone in the days after the homicide occurred.
				This, she said, is the point when chaos broke out. Suddenly, she said, Mercado burst into the room and began to wordlessly start punching Boote. She said she panicked and ran into her former bedroom in the house, freezing, as she put it.
				&ldquo;That wasn&rsquo;t supposed to happen,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That wasn&rsquo;t part of the plan.&rdquo;
				Then, she said she got out of &ldquo;shocked mode&rdquo; and ran downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed the largest kitchen knife she could find. She said she didn&rsquo;t have a clear plan of what to do with the knife, but intended to use it to show Mercado she &ldquo;was serious&rdquo; about telling him to stop.
				But Reyes said Mercado tried to grab the knife from her, cutting himself in the process before she dropped the knife. He picked up the knife, she said, and turned to face Boote.
				&ldquo;I saw what he was going to do,&rdquo; she said, saying she panicked and fled the room again because she didn&rsquo;t want to see what happened. But Ross asked her if she heard.
				&ldquo;I heard the blade go in,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how to describe the sound &#8230; like when you&rsquo;re cutting meat.&rdquo;
				Then, she said Mercado handed her Boote&rsquo;s wallet and cell phone, and then sent her to the kitchen to grab ammonia and the garage to get gasoline. She described Mercado wrapping Boote&rsquo;s body in a blanket or a towel, soaking it through with gasoline and setting it on fire before fleeing the home.
				Reyes said she began to get angry with Mercado at this point as they were walking along the dike near Boote&rsquo;s home, saying she was angry about what he had &ldquo;dragged&rdquo; her into. But Ross pointed out that she was, if not a willing participant, at least unwilling to remove herself from the situation.
				&ldquo;But, Ms. Reyes, you could&rsquo;ve escaped it any point,&rdquo; Ross said.
				&ldquo;I froze up,&rdquo; she said.
				The pair then eventually absconded to Mercado&rsquo;s uncle&rsquo;s home in New Jersey, and the uncle eventually turned them in to police. Reyes said that, after hearing Mercado tell his uncle that Boote had attempted to sexually assault her, she told that to police at first in an attempt to avoid getting in trouble, but she now says that this is not what happened.
				Defense attorney Allyson Kacmarski, during a relatively brief cross-examination of Reyes, pointed out that numerous details of Reyes&rsquo; story have changed substantially as time has gone on, with Kacmarski claiming that the detail of the elderly woman had initially been left out until Reyes&rsquo; most recent interview with police.
				Kacmarski also pointed out that Reyes, who has already pleaded guilty to a count of second degree murder in the case, has not yet been sentenced.
				Much of the later part of the day was dominated by lengthy portions of Mercado&rsquo;s initial interview with detectives, during which his recounting of events drastically changed multiple times. Mercado variously claimed that both he and Reyes stabbed Boote and that only he did, along with simultaneously making the sexual assault claims and acknowledging that they were there to rob him.
				After the video was shown, prosecutors rested their case, and Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Vough sent jurors home early for the day, saying there were legal issues to be taken care of with counsel outside of jurors&rsquo; presence.
				The defense will begin its case this morning, and Vough said he expects jurors to begin deliberating at some point today.

Teenager testifies against former co-defendant in Boote homicide case