A Hatboro salon owner killed a man. Was it self-defense or murder sparked by a years-long feud?

The trial for a Hatboro salon owner who shot and killed an unarmed man is, at its core, about hate, prosecutors and defense attorneys said as the case began Monday.

But that was the only thing the two sides agreed on as Maurice Byrd Jr. went on trial for murder in the death of Steven Strassburg, 38, whom he shot to death in the parking lot of his business in June.

Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman said Byrd, 42, hated Strassburg and after years of arguing, goaded him into a confrontation that he escalated into a fatality after Strassburg called him a racial slur.

“He made up his mind that Steven deserved to die, and he would make sure he was going to pull his trigger until Steven was dead,” Cauffman said.

Byrd’s attorney, Scott Frame, disputes that theory of the case, and said the prosecutor was trying to “manufacture intent” where it didn’t exist. The real hate, he argued, came from Strassburg, who called Byrd a “dirty n—” before charging at him with his fists swinging.

The shooting, Frame said, happened as Byrd, a disabled Army veteran, stood his ground against an “angry, racist, drunk maniac” who attacked Byrd — first verbally, and then physically.

“If he believes his life is in danger, he has every right to use his legally owned and registered gun that a war hero is allowed to have,” Frame said.

Byrd was charged with murder and related crimes after the June 8 shooting outside Razor Reese’s Salon on North York Road. Strassburg, who rented an apartment next to Byrd’s business, was shot in the neck and back after punching Byrd multiple times, prosecutors said.

The two men had gotten into an argument on the day of the shooting, and Strassburg called Byrd a racial epithet multiple times, according to evidence presented Monday. They then went their separate ways.

Surveillance video recorded inside Byrd’s salon shows him telling Strassburg to “come inside” before the fatal shooting. Byrd then says out loud, seemingly to himself, that he was going to shoot him.

Later, Byrd called 911 to report Strassburg’s threats, and a 911 operator told him to stay away from Strassburg and wait for police inside his salon.

But Byrd ignored those instructions, Cauffman said, and went back outside after seeing Strassburg walk by. He wanted to goad him into a fight, she said.

“He could have safely avoided this from happening,” Cauffman said. “But the facts will show you that he didn’t want to avoid this.”

Another video from a nearby business recorded Strassburg chasing Byrd, and then Byrd firing at him as he walks backward toward his salon. After the shooting, still on the call with 911, Byrd told the operator that he “just had to shoot” Strassburg to stop the attack.

Cauffman said the slaying was the culmination of a yearslong feud between the two men over, among other things, use of a parking space reserved for Byrd’s customers. Hatboro police had responded three times to arguments between the men since December 2022 and told them, each time, to avoid each other.

In January 2024, Byrd warned police that if Strassburg came into his shop again, he would defend himself, according to Cauffman. And months later, incensed that Strassburg had called him a slur, Byrd knew exactly what to do to craft a reasonable self-defense claim, she said.

“At the end of the day, it’s a word,” Cauffman said of the racial epithet that Byrd said provoked him. “Don’t let that word distract you from what this defendant did.”

But Frame, Byrd’s attorney, said his client had been repeatedly harassed by Strassburg, who used racial slurs each time. Their final confrontation could have gone a much different way, he said, given that anger and hate.

“I assure you, if [Byrd] didn’t have his gun, and Mr. Strassburg comes over and assaults him, who do you think would be in that chair?” Frame said. “Not my client.”

The trial is expected to continue though next week before Montgomery County Court Judge Risa Vetri Ferman.