PITTSBURGH -- A police confession tape was played Wednesday in the trial for Eric Hancock, 17, accused of shooting a store clerk to death in Mount Oliver.

The victim, Jamal Mouzaffar, 28, was a Syrian national visiting Pittsburgh last August so doctors could work on his prosthetic leg.

On the tape, Hancock, of Greensboro, N.C., told police he took money out of the cash register at A & E Deli Food Mart on Brownsville Road and then asked Mouzaffar about the store's safe.

"When he (a cousin named Jeremy) gave me the signal, I went in, hopped over the counter, told him (Mouzaffar) to put his hands up. He put his hands up and I told him to open the cash register. He opened it. I told him to move back and he did. And then I took the money out of the register and then I asked him, 'Where is the safe at?' He had his hands out towards me, like, 'No, what safe? Don't shoot me. No, what safe? 'And then I saw the safe and then I shot him and I grabbed the safe, picked it up," Hancock said on the tape.

In the confession, Eric Hancock said he and Jeremy Hancock decided to rob the store because Jeremy Hancock needed money to pay for a lawyer in another robbery case, police said.

After the tape was played for Manning, Hancock testified that he neither intended to shoot nor kill Mouzaffar. Hancock said he pulled the trigger after he became scared and tensed up during the robbery.

Prosecutors said they consider their key evidence to be surveillance video from the day of the shooting. That video footage was also played in court.

Key witnesses in Wednesday's testimony were two detectives from the Allegheny County Police Department.

Detectives said Hancock confessed to a number of different people, including his cousin, Justin, and police.

“(Justin) told me Eric told him that he did it," testified Detective Michael Garlicki. "He pointed the gun. The dude got scared and he did what he had to do.”

Another detective said Hancock confessed to him personally.

Hancock is charged as an adult with second-degree murder. If convicted, he would be eligible for a sentence of life in prison.