Lover of slain Montclair woman testifies in James Ray III trial

Bakari Burns, the Orlando man who was having an affair with Angela Bledsoe while she was living with James Ray III, the Montclair man accused of her murder, testified on Tuesday.

Burns' testimony was filled with salacious details about he and Bledsoe’s sexual relationship, which he read from a transcript of “sexts” the couple had exchanged. They had connected at their Florida A & M University reunion in October 2017 and spent several weekends together in the year before Bledsoe was killed.

During that time, Burns said, he had no idea that Bledsoe was in another relationship, let alone that she was living with Ray and their 6-year-old daughter.

That changed abruptly on Oct. 20, 2018, two days before Bledsoe was killed, when he got a call from Ray, who identified himself as her “fiance” and told him that she and he “ate dinner at the same table and slept in same bed every night.”

When Burns insisted he and Bledsoe were “just friends,” he said, he “could tell Ray was getting a little agitated."

More: Brother of James Ray III testifies killer told him victim had been violent

Ray’s attorneys are arguing that he shot Bledsoe in self defense, and the prosecution is striving to show that, on the contrary, he shot her in anger over her affair.

During the call, Ray told Burns, who is now an Orlando city official, that he had read the lovers’ texts and said, “We can bring Angela down there so we can confront her.”

“You need to be careful threatening people you don’t know,“ Burns said, and hung up.

On cross examination, defense lawyer Brooke Barnett tried to paint Bledsoe as a liar for not telling Burns she was in a relationship of seven or eight years.

“Would you have still been intimate with her if she had told you she was living with a man?” Barnett asked, and Burns replied, “Probably not.”

“For nine months, she lied to you,” she said.

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Barnett also tried to portray Ray as relaxed, rather than angry, about Angela’s life outside their relationship. “Nobody was holding her back from traveling; was her phone blowing up when you were having sex?” she asked Burns.

In fact, Ray had been unfaithful as well. When he and Bledsoe met he was married to Cheryl Ray, the mother of his two adult children, and possibly even when Bledsoe moved into the house on North Mountain Avenue in Montclair where the Rays had raised their children.

Burns, who had two young children when he was involved with Bledsoe and now has a third, was not married during their relationship, although Barnett suggested that he had other lovers, to which he replied that he "didn't remember."

The day after Ray's call, Bledsoe called, Burns testified. It was Sunday and he had just arrived at church with his daughters. Bledsoe seemed a “little bothered” that he'd told Ray they were just friends.

Burns told her he was “concerned for her safety” and didn’t want to “throw fire” on the situation.

He asked her about Ray’s statement that they were living together and she replied that they did eat dinner together but that their daughter slept in the bed with them, which he assumed meant that they did not have a sexual relationship.

She told him she had an appointment the next day with a realtor about a property she was looking to purchase.

“I said, congrats, let me know how it goes," Burns said.

Bledsoe was killed the next day, Monday, Oct. 22, 2018, just before she was to meet with the broker.

When Burns learned from one of Bledsoe’s FAMU sorority sisters on Oct. 23 that she was dead and that Ray was on the run, Burns immediately checked himself into a hotel and, a few days later, filed a police report about the threatening phone call. Worried that the killer, who had gained access to Bledsoe’s phone, would find his address there and come for him, he stayed in different hotels until Ray’s capture in Cuba was announced on the news on Nov. 7. 

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Montclair murder trial: Orlando man testifies about affair with victim