A Lexington murder suspect told authorities that when he pulled a firearm on a man outside a party in 2022, he didn’t want to hurt him — just scare him.

Woody LaPierre, 31, told Lexington Police Department detectives he had never met Adetokunbo “Tomi” Okunoye before he pointed a loaded firearm at his face and pulled the trigger.

Prosecutors showed videos of police interviews with LaPierre in court Tuesday, the second day of his trial.

LaPierre was charged with murder in September 2022, after he was alleged to have killed Okunoye at an apartment on Oxford Circle.

According to Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Mary Tobin, the two men were at an apartment for a party. Okunoye had recently graduated from Xavier University in Cincinnati with his Master’s of Business Administration, and was visiting Lexington to see friends and attended the party, Tobin said.

When the party ended, Okunoye was looking for a friend he came with, whom he discovered was passed out in the passenger’s seat of LaPierre’s car after they had been gone from the party for a while.

Okunoye and his friends were frustrated with not being able to locate their friend in order to leave, witnesses testified on Tuesday. LaPierre and a woman had gone to get something to eat and when they returned, the woman was asleep in the car.

Okunoye had been drinking, and LaPierre told police previously Okunoye confronted him once they arrived back at the party, saying, “You are the reason I am still here.”

In the LPD video shown in court, the suspect said Okunoye grabbed his arm, and that’s why LaPierre responded by pulling out a hand gun and pointing it at Okunoye.

LaPierre could not answer police when they asked him his reasoning, other than, “I was scared.”

He could also not answer why he chose to shoot, or whether he remembered pulling the trigger. LaPierre said he obtained the gun from his father.

“You know what happens when you pull the trigger, right?” A detective asked LaPierre.

LaPierre confessed to officers he had only shot a gun once before at a firing range.

“I didn’t want to fight; I just wanted to scare him off,” LaPierre repeated.

When Okunoye collapsed, LaPierre who was scared. That’s when he left the scene and called multiple loved ones — his mother, sister, and friend — who all told him he needed to go to police and turn himself in, he said in police interviews.

However, he went home, showered, put his clothes in a garbage bag and turned off his phone, he told police.

Testimony is expected to continue through Wednesday.