It was just a suggestion, the witness said, that led four men to a home in Lancaster city where they planned to rob the young woman who lived there.

One man grabbed a gun and off they went to a Pearl Street home, the witness said.

They returned less than an hour later, the witness said, telling him the gunman was "crazy" and the woman, Heather Marie Nunn, was dead.

All four men were ordered to stand trial on a charge of criminal homicide following a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

The four men — Edward Major, 31, Lancaster; David Jordan, 28, Lancaster Township; Hayward Stewart, 33, Lancaster; and his cousin, Michael Stewart, 31, Columbia — are being held without bail in Lancaster County Prison.

Nunn, a 24-year-old mother of two young daughters, was shot to death inside her home about 9:30 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2004.

Her daughters, who were 8 and 6, were upstairs and came down to find their mother lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

The homicide went unsolved for more than five years, until Major's cousin, Kevin Major, apparently talked to police investigators.

On Tuesday, Kevin Major, who is in federal prison on unrelated drug and weapons charges, took the witness stand to testify at the hearing.

The hearing was held before District Judge Cheryl Hartman in the Lancaster County Courthouse for security and space reasons.

Each of the defendants, dressed in matching orange prison jumpsuits with their ankles and wrists in chains and shackles, sat at separate tables, each with his own defense attorney.

At a fifth table sat the prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark S. Miller and Assistant District Attorney Ryan Boop, along with city police Detective Nathan Nickel.

It was around 8 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2004, Kevin Major said, when Jordan and the Stewarts came to his Seymour Street home. His cousin, Edward Major, already was there, the witness said.

The men, with the exception of Hayward Stewart, began smoking marijuana, the witness testified, then Jordan "said he wanted to rob somebody" and suggested "Heather."

"I asked what Heather he was talking about," Kevin Major said. "He said, 'The one that sells weed (marijuana).' I said, 'She ain't got no money. ' "

"She do so," the witness said his girlfriend, Penny Dotson, chimed in, adding that "she buys weed off her all the time."

Jordan said, "Let's go," Kevin Major testified, and the others agreed.

But first, the witness said, his cousin, Edward Major, went upstairs and came down carrying a black .32 caliber handgun.

Hayward Stewart did not want to take his red truck to the robbery, Kevin Major testified, so the witness gave Stewart the keys to his car.

Miller asked the witness why he did not go along with the four men.

"I was watching the kids," he said, referring to the three young children in his home that night.

"Would you have gone?" Miller asked.

"Yes," Kevin Major replied.

When the foursome returned to the Seymour Street home, Kevin Major said, the Stewarts and Jordan each said to him, "Your cousin is crazy."

Jordan, he said, not only told him Edward Major was "crazy," but also that "he killed that girl."

The witness said he told his cousin, "You gotta get out of here and lay low," but first, "You gotta go bury the gun."

While the others watched, Kevin Major said, Edward Major went into the backyard and buried the gun.

Under cross-examination, Michael Stewart's attorney, Samuel Rivera, asked Kevin Major about his prior relationship with the victim.

"You had dated her, cared about her," Rivera asked, yet the witness never said to the others, "Stop," or never called the police to alert them to the robbery, or never said to them, "Don't hurt her."

Kevin Major said the defense attorney's statement was correct.

And, Rivera continued, Kevin Major didn't speak with police until 2009, when "you cooperated because you were charged with a federal crime."

"Right," the witness said.

"You had nothing to do with it," Rivera said, referring to Nunn's death.

"Yeah, I had something to do with it," Kevin Major replied.

Jeff Conrad, Edward Major's defense attorney, also hammered at Kevin Major.

"It was your car" the men drove, Conrad said, "your house, your yard," where the gun was buried, and "your ex-girlfriend" who was killed.

Major agreed.

Douglas Cody, Hayward Stewart's attorney, questioned Kevin Major's statement that he knew Nunn had no money while testifying that he had not seen her for several months prior to her death.

"I don't know about her having money like that," Major said.

James Gratton, Jordan's attorney, said that when his client supposedly suggested the robbery, "Everybody's shocked, of course."

"No, nobody's shocked," Major said.

But at least three of the four men were "fairly shocked" that Edward Major allegedly "killed this girl," Gratton said.

"Yes," the witness said.

Nickel, who led the police investigation, testified that Nunn died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.

At the end of the hearing, the defense attorneys argued that the charges should be dismissed because the case was based on "conjecture and speculation."

But Miller argued that all four men agreed to go along to commit a robbery, knowing someone was "bringing a gun for the party over at Heather Nunn's house."

And after Nunn was shot to death, Miller continued, the four men returned to the Seymour Street home for the "ceremonial burial of the gun."

Hartman agreed that there was enough evidence to send the case to trial and the defendants were all returned to county prison.

When the arrests were announced last month, Edward Major already was in federal prison on unrelated cocaine delivery charges and Hayward Stewart was in Lebanon County Prison on unrelated offenses.

Jordan was in Lancaster County Prison awaiting trial on an unrelated homicide charge stemming from a stabbing on St. Joseph Street last year.

The names of Nunn's daughters, and that of their uncle, with whom they now live, are being withheld by Lancaster Newspapers at their request.

jkelley@lnpnews.com