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Stanley Jalowiec Ohio Death Row

Stanley Jalowiec was sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for a brutal murder. According to court documents Stanley Jalowiec and two accomplices, Raymond and Danny Smith, would torture Ronald Lally in a Cleveland cemetery. Ronald Lally was due to testify against the Smith brothers in a drug trafficking trial. Ronald Lally would be beaten, shot, stabbed and ran over by a car. Stanley Jalowiec was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Ohio Death Row Inmate List

Stanley Jalowiec 2021 Information

Number A321712

DOB 08/17/1970

Gender Male Race White

Admission Date 04/12/1996

Institution Chillicothe Correctional Institution

Status INCARCERATED

Stanley Jalowiec More News

On the morning of January 19, 1994, a partially clad male body was found in Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland. Two weeks later, the body was identified as that of Ronald Lally of Elyria. Over a year later, the grand jury indicted defendant-appellant, Stanley E. Jalowiec, for aggravated murder, with firearm and death-penalty specifications. The indictment alleged that Jalowiec purposely killed Lally to prevent him from testifying in criminal proceedings, which had been scheduled to begin on January 19, 1994. Subsequently, a jury found Jalowiec guilty as charged, and he was sentenced to death.

In June 1993, Ron Lally contacted the Elyria police to volunteer as a police informant. Lally signed an agreement to become a confidential informant for the Elyria police and agreed to make controlled drug buys. On June 7, 1993, with the assistance of Officer Scott Ashley and Detective Alan Leiby, Lally made a controlled drug buy of crack cocaine from Danny Smith and his father Raymond Smith while wired with a hidden monitoring device. As a result of the controlled buy, police arrested both Raymond Smith and Danny Smith in August 1993 and charged them with aggravated drug trafficking. Both cases were eventually set for trial on January 19, 1994.

On January 18, 1994, the evening before the murder, Brian Howington and Jalowiec went to several bars in downtown Elyria. (Howington knew Jalowiec because Jalowiec used to visit Howington’s aunt, Joann Corrine Fike, when Howington lived with her.) Jalowiec then asked Howington to accompany him to a friend’s house on Middle Avenue. There, Howington met Ron Lally and his roommate, and the four of them smoked crack cocaine. Around 11:30 p.m., Jalowiec, Howington, and Lally went to Fike’s house and “[s]hot pool, partied some more.”

About an hour later, Jalowiec got a page and asked Howington if he could borrow Fike’s car, a Chrysler LeBaron convertible. Though Howington was hesitant, he relented after Jalowiec persisted. Around 1:00 a.m., Jalowiec and Lally left Fike’s house in the LeBaron. The next time Howington saw the car was around 5:00 a.m. when Jalowiec and Raymond Smith returned it to Fike’s apartment. At that time, the car was covered with ice, and Jalowiec and Smith told Howington that the car had been washed. Fike testified that Jalowiec told her that he had washed the car because there was blood on it as a result of a fight he had had with someone at Mom’s Open Kitchen.

Sharon Hopkins testified that she was at Razzle’s bar in Elyria one night in January 1994 with her brother, Terry Hopkins, Raymond Smith, Danny Smith, Michael Smith (another son of Raymond), and several others, including Jalowiec. The group stayed at Razzle’s until it closed and then, without Jalowiec, went to eat at Mom’s Open Kitchen until around 2:45-3:00 a.m.

After leaving Mom’s, Sharon Hopkins rode in Danny Smith’s car with several people including Raymond, Danny, and Michael Smith. They traveled on Middle Avenue past the railroad tracks just outside the Elyria city limits and dropped Raymond and Michael Smith off by a wooded area. They drove back over the tracks and pulled into a parking lot. Approximately five to ten minutes later, a convertible drove over the tracks to where they had dropped off Raymond and Michael Smith. Danny Smith said, “That is it.”

Several minutes later, the convertible drove by again heading toward town, and Danny Smith’s car began to follow it. Shortly thereafter, Danny Smith signaled the convertible to pull over and ducked down in the front passenger seat while telling Sharon Hopkins to get out and ask the people in the convertible whether they had picked up Michael Smith. Sharon Hopkins saw Jalowiec get out of the driver’s seat of the convertible. Jalowiec responded that Michael Smith was in the car. Although Sharon Hopkins could not see the other occupants, she could tell that there were four people inside the convertible. Danny Smith then drove Sharon Hopkins home.

Later that morning, at around 3:30-4:00 a.m., Danny Smith arrived back at his apartment. Terry Hopkins arrived a little later and noticed that Danny Smith was “nervous and said he was feeling sick to his stomach.” Danny Smith told Hopkins that “they had done it, they did it.” Hopkins then went back to his sister’s apartment across the street from Danny Smith’s apartment. Later, Hopkins visited Danny Smith again and also saw Jalowiec, Raymond Smith, and Michael Smith. Jalowiec said, “They stomped him and ran him over with a car.” The others there indicated that “they shot him and cut him.” According to Hopkins, they were “[k]ind of like bragging about it.” Danny Smith told Hopkins they wanted this person killed because he had worn “a wire on him on a drug sale.”

At approximately 9:55 a.m. on January 19, 1994, Cleveland homicide detective Michael Beaman was summoned to Woodland Cemetery. A male body had been found on a cemetery roadway. Some of the victim’s clothing was nearby in a snow bank. There was no identification on or near the victim and police did not learn the identity of the victim, Lally, until a few weeks later.

Dr. Heather Raaf, a forensic pathologist with the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office, performed the autopsy on Lally. Dr. Raaf testified that teeth in Lally’s mouth had been knocked out by a gunshot. Dr. Raaf estimated that Lally had sustained at least eleven blows to his head and that his injuries were consistent with being stomped or struck by a vehicle several times. Dr. Raaf determined that Lally’s death resulted from a gunshot wound to the head and multiple blunt impacts to the head.

The drug trafficking cases against Danny and Raymond Smith were subsequently dismissed because Lally, the primary witness in both cases, was dead.

After an extensive police investigation, the grand jury indicted Jalowiec on March 8, 1995, for aggravated murder with a firearms specification. In addition, a death-penalty specification alleged that Jalowiec purposely killed Lally in order to prevent his testimony as a witness in a criminal proceeding.

At trial, the key witness for the prosecution was Michael Smith, son of Raymond Smith¹ and brother of Danny Smith. Michael Smith contacted Detective Leiby in April 1994 because he was bothered about having witnessed the Lally murder. During Raymond Smith’s murder trial, Michael Smith had been unavailable to testify, and the prosecution proffered testimony from him that had been elicited in a deposition. State v. Smith (2000), 87 Ohio St.3d 424, 428, 721 N.E.2d 93, 102. However, at Jalowiec’s trial, Michael Smith testified as a prosecution witness.

Michael Smith testified that, purely by chance, he had met his father and brother at Mom’s Open Kitchen around 2:30 a.m. on the night of the murder. Raymond Smith had made a phone call and indicated to Michael Smith that he was going to leave. Michael agreed to go with his father and left with him and his brother, Danny Smith. The Smiths and Danny Smith’s girlfriend got in Danny Smith’s car and both Raymond and Michael Smith were dropped off on Middle Avenue. Raymond and Michael waited outside in the cold, even though Michael had no idea what they were waiting for. The LeBaron driven by Jalowiec with Lally as a passenger pulled up to them and stopped. Raymond Smith told Lally to get in the back seat, and Michael Smith got in the back seat on the driver’s side. Raymond Smith sat in the passenger side front seat and made introductions.

Shortly thereafter, Raymond Smith brandished a gun and told Lally, “Don’t make any sudden moves.” The group stopped to buy gas, beer, and cigarettes, then drove on Route 2 toward Cleveland. Raymond Smith asked Lally, “Why did you set my son up?” Lally denied doing so, but appeared to be scared. Smith then told Lally, “We are going to give you some money, get you a bus ticket, you are going to get out of town.”

During the trip into Cleveland, all four men were smoking crack cocaine. Lally agreed to leave town, and they drove to East Cleveland to buy some crack for Lally’s trip. However, they saw police cars and fire trucks in the neighborhood and decided to drive back towards downtown Cleveland. As they drove, Raymond Smith directed Jalowiec to pull the LeBaron into a Cleveland cemetery.

Inside the cemetery, Raymond Smith got out of the car, put the gun to Lally’s face, and ordered him out of the car. He then told Lally, “You will never snitch on nobody again.” Michael Smith heard a gunshot and then heard Lally exclaim: “You shot me in my head, you shot me in my head.” Raymond then told Michael and Jalowiec to get out and assist him. Jalowiec got out of the car, but Michael remained inside the car and did not look out. He heard “thumps like hitting” and heard Lally plead, “I won’t tell nobody, please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.”

Michael Smith testified that after about two to five minutes of quiet, he could tell that the trunk had been opened and that his father and Jalowiec were trying to put something in the trunk. He heard someone say, “He ain’t going to fit, * * * he is too stiff,” then he heard something drop. Then Raymond Smith and Jalowiec got back in the car, and Jalowiec started the car and put it in reverse. According to Michael Smith, when Lally’s body stopped the car from going any further, Jalowiec drove forward a short distance and then put the car into reverse. Michael Smith could feel the car hit something. Jalowiec did this three times and then drove out of the cemetery.

As they drove from the cemetery, Raymond Smith began arguing with Michael Smith: “This is for your brother, why didn’t you get out and help?” While driving back to Elyria, Raymond took his gun apart and threw it out the window, piece by piece. Upon arriving in Elyria, they dropped Michael Smith off at Danny Smith’s apartment.

Linda Luke, a forensic serologist in the coroner’s office, conducted tests on stains found on the trunk liner of the Chrysler LeBaron. Luke testified that the DNA in Lally’s blood sample was consistent with the blood found on the trunk liner.

After deliberation, the jury found Jalowiec guilty as charged.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/oh-supreme-court/1139258.html

Kareem Jackson Ohio Death Row

Kareem Jackson was sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for a double murder. According to court documents Kareem Jackson and a few associates would rob the victims then would shoot the two men, Antonio Hunter and Terrance Walker, in the head causing their deaths to prevent them from identifying them to the police.

Ohio Death Row Inmate List

Kareem Jackson 2021 Information

Number A354156

DOB 03/05/1974

Gender Male Race Black

Admission Date 03/11/1998

Institution Chillicothe Correctional Institution

Status INCARCERATED

Kareem Jackson More News

The evidence at trial revealed that on the evening of March 24, 1997, appellant and four other individuals decided to rob an apartment in Columbus, Ohio. Appellant and a man called “Little Bee” devised the plan, which called for both men to enter the apartment and purchase drugs. The men would then be joined by two others, Michael Patterson and Derrick Boone, who would enter the apartment armed with guns. Malaika Williamson was put in charge of driving the men to and from the robbery.

Just past midnight, on March 25, 1997, Malaika Williamson drove the men to the Lupo Court apartment. The victims, Antorio Hunter and Terrance Walker, were inside the apartment with their friends, Nikki Long and Becky Lewis. Long and Walker were in the back bedroom talking when appellant and Little Bee knocked at the door. Hunter answered the door and allowed appellant and Little Bee to enter. Walker came out of the back bedroom, recognized appellant, shook appellant’s hand and said, “I haven’t seen you in a long time.” Appellant and Little Bee then bought some marijuana.

Almost immediately after the purchase, Patterson and Boone burst into the apartment armed with shotguns. The men searched the apartment for drugs and money. Appellant struck Lewis on the head with his handgun, placed a pillow behind her head and threatened to kill her. Lewis begged appellant not to kill her, and appellant refrained from doing so. Appellant led Lewis into the kitchen. Patterson and Little Bee left the apartment, but appellant and Boone remained.

According to Boone’s testimony, Walker and Hunter were both lying on the floor. Appellant ordered one of them to crawl beside the other and to lie face down on the floor so that his head was next to the other’s. While on the floor, either Hunter or Walker told appellant that he “didn’t have no money or weed” and that he wouldn’t call the police. Nevertheless, appellant told Boone, “They know my name. I have to kill them.” Appellant then grabbed a pillow, hesitated, and shot one of the men in the head. The other, while still lying on the floor, begged for his life, saying, “Please don’t kill me. I ain’t going to say nothing.” Despite his plea, appellant placed a pillow behind the second victim’s head. Appellant hesitated again and then shot him in the back of the head.

Following the shootings, appellant and Boone left the apartment and joined the others in the car. Williamson drove the men back to her apartment, where they divided the proceeds from the robbery, which consisted of approximately $40 in cash, $60 worth of marijuana, and a cellular phone.

In the meantime, Long and Lewis, who had heard the gunshots but had not witnessed the shootings, waited in the kitchen until they felt it was safe to leave. They called Hunter’s name, and when there was no response, they went into the living room and saw that Hunter and Walker had been shot. The two women, afraid to leave through the front door, fled through a bedroom window. They went into another apartment and called the police.

Officer Andrew Shuster of the Clinton Township Police Department responded to a dispatcher’s call at about 12:42 a.m. Upon arriving at the Lupo Court apartments, the officer found the door to the apartment ajar and discovered the bodies of Hunter and Walker lying face down on the floor just inside the doorway. A cushion with bullet holes was found next to the victims.

Later that morning, an agent from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation met with Long, who provided him with enough information to make a composite portrait of Boone using a face kit. Police distributed the sketch of Boone to the sheriff’s department and to the media. Soon after the release of the composite, Boone turned himself in to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.

Boone cooperated with the police and gave them a statement implicating appellant and the others involved in the shootings. As a result, the police presented Lewis with a photo array lineup, which included a photo of appellant. Lewis positively identified appellant from the photo array lineup as the “guy with the little gun,” the person who hit her over the head with the gun during the robbery and threatened to kill her.

Police then collected physical evidence relating to the shootings. Police retrieved a handgun from Williamson’s apartment, which was tested and found to have fired the bullets retrieved from Antorio Hunter. The firearms expert could not conclusively state that the handgun fired the other bullet removed from Terrance Walker. However, this bullet possessed some characteristics matching appellant’s handgun, and the bullet was the same caliber as his weapon. Police also searched the apartment appellant shared with his girlfriend, Ivana King, and found a shotgun in a closet and two rifles hidden beneath the molding under the kitchen sink cupboard. Police retrieved nine .38 caliber bullets from the apartment. Police also interviewed Ivana King, who said that appellant had told her that “he [had] done two people.”

Deputy coroners from the Franklin County Coroner’s Office performed autopsies on Hunter and Walker. Each coroner concluded that the victims had died from gunshot wounds to the head.

Appellant was arrested on March 28, 1997, and was subsequently indicted on six counts of aggravated murder for the deaths of Hunter and Walker. Each murder count included two death penalty specifications for multiple murder and murder during an aggravated robbery and/or kidnapping in violation of R.C. 2929.04(A)(5) and (A)(7). Appellant was also charged with four counts of aggravated robbery, four counts of kidnapping, and one count of felonious assault. Each of the fifteen total counts carried a firearm specification.

At trial, the trial court granted appellant’s motion for acquittal on count eight, the aggravated robbery of Lewis. However, the jury found appellant guilty as charged on the remaining counts.

At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury recommended that the court sentence appellant to death. The trial court accepted this recommendation and sentenced appellant accordingly.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/oh-supreme-court/1345392.html

Jeremiah Jackson Ohio Death Row

Jeremiah Jackson was sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for a robbery murder. According to court documents Jeremiah Jackson would enter the laundromat and in the process of robbing it would shoot and kill a clerk, Tracy Pickryl. Jeremiah Jackson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Ohio Death Row Inmate List

Jeremiah Jackson 2021 Information

Number A583601

DOB 11/10/1979

Gender Male Race Black

Admission Date 05/03/2010

Institution Chillicothe Correctional Institution

Status INCARCERATED

Jeremiah Jackson More News

The Ohio Supreme Court, in a split decision, on Tuesday upheld the death sentence for Jeremiah Jackson for the 2009 murder of Tracy Pickryl at the laundromat on Cleveland’s West Side where she worked.

The court, in a 6-1 decision, rejected Jackson’s claims that the presiding judge at trial had exhibited bias and interfered with the defense’s preparation by ordering a hearing on whether Jackson was mentally disabled, and thus ineligible for the death penalty.

Defense lawyers had indicated they were not going to raise that issue, and in a journal entry the presiding judge had expressed concern that the defense “planned to under-represent the defendant and provide him with an ineffective assistance of counsel basis for later appeal.”

Justice Terrence O’Donnell, writing for the majority, said that hearing was appropriate and noted that it could have proved to be favorable to Jackson’s defense.

“Based upon Jackson’s IQ scores …, the trial court was justified in inquiring into whether an evaluation of Jackson’s mental abilities was appropriate,” O’Donnell said in his opinion. “No evidence was presented showing that Jackson was mentally retarded. Thus, even assuming that the trial court overstepped its bounds in conducting this abbreviated hearing, no prejudice occurred.”

The court also rejected other claims of error raised by Jackson’s attorney.

Pickryl’s murder was the culmination of a string of six robberies in several counties. The crime spree started June 2, 2009, when Jackson shot and injured a friend. He robbed a coin laundry on East 63rd Street and Fleet Avenue in Cleveland; two Cleveland-area bars; a Walgreens on Leavitt Road in Lorain; and the Howard Johnson Hotel across from Cedar Point in Sandusky, which he used as his hideout.

Pickryl, 38, was killed during a robbery June 15, 2009, at the Soap Opera Laundry on West 25th Street in Cleveland. He took $50 and Pickryl’s necklace, but when he tried to grab her bracelet, police said, she jerked back and he shot her in the head.

Police arrested Jackson les that a week later. He faced dozens of charges, including aggravated murder for Pickryl’s death and attempted murders of two other people. Other charges included aggravated robbery, felonious assault and kidnapping.

A three-judge panel sentenced Jackson to death in April 2010.

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Sharon L. Kennedy joined O’Donnell’s opinion. Justices Judith Ann Lanzinger and Judith L. French concurred in the judgment.

Justice William M. O’Neill dissented, restating his opinion that the death penalty is constitutionally prohibited because it is cruel and unusual punishment.

“I do not expect that the court will adopt my view that the death penalty is cruel and unusual and therefore constitutionally forbidden anytime soon,” O’Neill wrote. “But I do believe that at some point in the near future this court will be forced to recognize that Ohio’s death penalty reaches too far, to too many crimes and to too many criminals.”

O’Neill criticized the hearing to determine if Jackson was intellectually disabled as one that certainly raised the question of impartiality and interfered with the attorney-client relationship.

“Admittedly, trial courts have great latitude in managing the cases over which they preside,” he wrote. “But this hearing had one justification only: to protect a yet-to-be-imposed death sentence from reversal in a subsequent appeal.”

And he argued that the mitigating factors in the case, including Jackson’s intelligence, his “difficult background” which included abuse and his substance abuse should have precluded a death sentence.

https://www.cleveland.com/open/2014/09/laundry-murder_death_sentence_1.html

Andre Jackson Ohio Death Row

Andre Jackson was sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for a robbery murder. According to court documents Andre Jackson would walk into a laundromat and in the process of robbing it would beat to death the owner Emily Zak. Andre Jackson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Ohio Death Row Inmate List

Andre Jackson 2021 Information

Number A203859

DOB 03/09/1966

Gender Male Race Black

Admission Date 06/21/1988

Institution Chillicothe Correctional Institution

Status INCARCERATED

Andre Jackson More News

A judge in Ohio has ruled that a man who’s been on death row for more than 30 years is intellectually disabled and has thrown out his death sentence.

Andre Jackson was convicted of aggravated murder in 1988 for fatally beating a 74-year-old employee at a laundromat in Euclid. Cleveland.com reports a Cuyahoga County judge has found Jackson is intellectually disabled now and likely was when Emily Zak was killed in 1987.

The ruling says executing Jackson would violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Office of the Ohio Public Defender, representing Jackson, says the court reached a “just result.”

The county prosecutor’s office has vowed to appeal.

Authorities said the now 53-year-old Jackson beat Zak to death and stole a cash register.

https://www.news-herald.com/news/cuyahoga-county/judge-tosses-death-sentence-of-man-on-death-row-for/article_4c0796b9-22e0-5810-bdf6-6655247cc9e1.html

Percy Hutton Ohio Death Row

Percy Hutton was sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for Derek “Ricky” Mitchell and attempting to murder Samuel Simmons Jr. According to court documents Percy Hutton would shoot and kill Derek “Ricky” Mitchell and attempting to murder Samuel Simmons Jr over a stolen sewing machine. Percy Hutton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Ohio Death Row Inmate List

Percy Hutton 2021 Information

Number A195620

DOB 10/28/1953

Gender Male Race Black

Admission Date 03/16/1987

Institution Chillicothe Correctional Institution

Status INCARCERATED

Percy Hutton More News

In 1986, a jury found that Appellant, Percy “June” Hutton, murdered Derek “Ricky” Mitchell and attempted to kill Samuel Simmons Jr. on September 16, 1985. Hutton was convicted of aggravated murder with two death specifications. After a penalty hearing, the trial court sentenced Hutton to death.

{¶ 2} Hutton had once been a close friend of Mitchell and Simmons. However, Hutton became angry with the two men because he believed that they had stolen from him. On Friday, September 13, or Saturday, September 14, 1985, outside the house where Samuel Simmons Jr., then lived, Hutton confronted Simmons over the theft of a sewing machine belonging to Hutton.

{¶ 3} Claiming that he had seen Mitchell trying to sell the machine, Hutton demanded its immediate return. Simmons suggested that Hutton talk to Mitchell. During this conversation, Mitchell arrived. He and Hutton entered the residence and went upstairs together. When they returned, according to Simmons, Hutton said that “it wasn’t what he was looking for and if he found out we had anything to do with what was missing or stolen he was going to kill us.” Hutton also told Mitchell, “I’m tired with you f* * *ing with me and stuff like that.”

{¶ 4} Around midnight on Monday, September 16, 1985, Hutton drove to Simmons’s house in a gray Chrysler Cordoba, accompanied by Bruce Laster, whose sister was engaged to Hutton. Hutton asked Simmons to come with him and help him work on a car. When Simmons got into Hutton’s car, he noticed a .22-caliber rifle lying on the back seat.

{¶ 5} Hutton drove to Mitchell’s house, stating that he wanted to talk to Simmons and Mitchell. When they arrived, Simmons went in and brought Mitchell outside, telling him that “June wanted to talk to him.” Hutton then confronted Mitchell, demanding the return of his sewing machine and accusing Mitchell of stealing some tires from Hutton’s backyard. Hutton said that he had hidden $750 in the sewing machine.

{¶ 6} Mitchell denied taking the machine. However, Hutton insisted that Mitchell had tried to sell it to a Mr. Evans. Hutton demanded that Mitchell come with him to Evans’s house to settle the issue. Hutton threatened to “f* * * [Mitchell] up” if Evans confirmed Mitchell’s guilt.

{¶ 7} Mitchell and Simmons got into the car. Before pulling away from the curb, Hutton pointed the rifle into Simmons’s side and said: “I don’t appreciate you all breaking in my sister’s house.”

{¶ 8} Instead of going to Evans’s house, Hutton drove to a parking lot behind an RTA bus facility. Hutton got out of the car and ordered Mitchell to get out as well. Hutton and Mitchell then walked a short distance from the car. Simmons could not hear their conversation, but he saw Hutton put a pistol against Mitchell’s head.

{¶ 9} Hutton and Mitchell returned to the car. With Mitchell giving directions, Hutton drove to an area known as “the Projects.” Hutton and Mitchell went into a building and emerged after a few minutes with a white sewing-machine case.

{¶ 10} Hutton drove to his mother’s house, took the case inside, and returned to the car. He then drove to the next street and pulled into an alley where a Cadillac El Dorado was parked. Hutton told Simmons that the El Dorado was the car he wanted to work on. Simmons got out of Hutton’s car. Hutton then moved his car to the other end of the street. Leaving Laster and Mitchell in the car, he walked back to the alley, where Simmons was waiting.

{¶ 11} Hutton broke into the El Dorado with a screwdriver. When Simmons got inside, Hutton opened the hood and told him to try starting the engine. Hutton then walked back to Simmons, shot him twice in the back of the head, and ran up the alley.

{¶ 12} Unable to move at first, lying half in and half out of the car, Simmons cried for help. He managed to get up and stagger away in search of assistance. Simmons went first to the nearby home of Hutton’s mother, then to Mary Etta Pollard’s house next door. He banged on Pollard’s front door and cried for help. Then he heard Hutton’s car coming out of the nearby alley. He ran into Pollard’s back yard and pounded on the back door, shouting that he had been shot.

{¶ 13} Hutton drove up and stopped in front of Pollard’s house. He urged Simmons to “come here” or “come from back there.” Hutton noticed that Pollard’s son[, Allen Pollard,] was looking out from his front door and told him to close the door. Simmons begged Hutton to take him to the hospital. Hutton said, “Just shut up and get in the car,” and Simmons obeyed. Mitchell and Bruce Laster were in the car with Hutton.

{¶ 14} Telling Mitchell that some unknown assailant had shot Simmons, Hutton drove to St. Luke’s Hospital. Simmons asked Mitchell to go inside with him, but Mitchell said, “No. We [are] going to get the mother-f* * *er that did this to you.”

{¶ 15} At 2:30 a.m., Mitchell, Hutton, and Laster returned to Mitchell’s home. They woke Mitchell’s girlfriend, Eileen Sweeney, and took her to the hospital, where they dropped her off. Sweeney went into the hospital to visit Simmons. Telling her that Hutton had shot him, Simmons sent her to warn Mitchell to get out of the car. She went outside, but the car was gone.

{¶ 16} Hospital security officer Paul Whitcomb saw a Chrysler Cordoba drop Simmons off and leave “in a hurry.” About half an hour later, Whitcomb saw the same car drop off Sweeney. After Sweeney went inside, Whitcomb saw the same car parked across the street from the hospital. He sent security officer Gary Barnhard to get the license number. As Barnhard drove past the car, he saw its two occupants crouch down in an attempt at concealment. Then the car left. A subsequent check of the license number disclosed that the gray Chrysler was registered to Hutton’s fiancée, Celeste Laster.

{¶ 17} Hutton and Bruce Laster later returned to the hospital without Mitchell. Sweeney was still there. Hutton told her that Mitchell was at home and offered to drive her back. However, once he had Sweeney inside the car, Hutton took her to a park instead. There, Hutton and Sweeney got out of the car. Laster then drove off, and Hutton proceeded to rape Sweeney. During the rape, Hutton told Sweeney that “Ricky wasn’t coming back.” According to Sweeney, Hutton had in his possession a small handgun with a white handle and a silver-colored barrel.

{¶ 18} When Laster returned with the car, Sweeney saw Hutton remove two rifles from the trunk and put them in the rear passenger compartment. Hutton then drove Sweeney home to the apartment she shared with Mitchell.

{¶ 19} When they arrived, Mitchell was not there. The door to the apartment had been damaged and the apartment was in disarray. Sweeney was too “scared and nervous” to drive, so Hutton drove her to the home of LaWanda Mitchell, the sister of Ricky Mitchell. Hutton followed Sweeney into LaWanda’s house. According to Sweeney, Hutton told her that “Ricky [Mitchell] wasn’t coming back,” and that “if [she] told, someone would be looking for [her].”

{¶ 20} On Tuesday, September 17, Hutton drove to Indianapolis to enroll in a course for automotive mechanics at the Lincoln Technical Institute.

{¶ 21} On September 30, 1985, the body of Derek Mitchell was found near an intersection in Cleveland with a large tire lying on the body. An autopsy disclosed that Mitchell had been shot to death. Two .22-caliber long rifle bullets were recovered from the body; a firearms expert testified that these could have been fired from either a rifle or a handgun. The expert testified that the bullets that killed Mitchell had the same class characteristics as a bullet that had been removed from Simmons’s head, but he could not tell whether all three had been fired from the same gun. The murder weapon was never found.

{¶ 22} The defense presented evidence that Mitchell was not killed on September 16, 1985, but at some later time while Hutton was in Indianapolis. Denise Richardson testified that she spoke to Mitchell at 3:00 p.m. on September 17, 1985, the day after the state claims Mitchell was murdered. According to Hutton, he was in Indianapolis at the time Richardson spoke to Mitchell. Hutton claimed that he stayed in Indianapolis until October 3, except for two brief visits to Cleveland on September 21 and 28. An employee of the Indianapolis YMCA saw Hutton there sometime after 4:00 p.m. on September 17. The YMCA employee testified that Hutton had paid rent for the period of September 17 through October 3.

{¶ 23} On October 4, 1985, Cleveland Police Detective Robert Moore spoke to Hutton on the telephone. Hutton agreed to return to Cleveland and surrender to Moore at a prearranged time and place. On October 5, Hutton surrendered.

{¶ 24} Hutton and Laster were jointly indicted on two counts of aggravated murder for killing Derek Mitchell. The first count charged that they committed the murder with prior calculation and design. [O].R.C. 2903.01(A). The second charged them with murdering Mitchell while committing, attempting, or fleeing the commission or attempted commission of kidnapping. [O].R.C. 2903.01(B). Each murder count carried two capital specifications: a course-of-conduct specification, [O].R.C. 2929.04(A)(5), and a felony-murder kidnapping specification, [O].R.C. 2929.04(A)(7). Hutton and Laster were also indicted for kidnapping Mitchell and Simmons, and for the attempted murder of Simmons. Each count carried a firearm specification.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1750936.html