Technician describes murder trial’s evidence

Rifle casings at the crime scene match ones found at Crockett’s house.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The physical evidence described by a Youngstown crime lab technician was staggering:

•About a dozen spent assault rifle bullet casings.

•About a dozen spent handgun bullet casings.

•About 21 gunshot holes in a pickup truck.

And four bullet holes were in the body of 23-year-old Martwain Dill of West LaClede Avenue as his body lay slumped inside of a pickup truck at the intersection of Glenwood and Earle avenues Nov. 3, 2006.

Technician Robert Mauldin described the items to a jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday in the first day of testimony in the aggravated murder trial of Gary Crockett, 30, of Buckeye Circle.

Steven Shandor, an assistant county prosecutor, told jurors during opening statements that he will present evidence that Crockett was the man who fired the dozen shots from an assault rifle.

It won’t be clear that Crockett fired the fatal shot to Dill’s head, however, because an autopsy indicated the bullet passed through Dill’s head, Shandor said.

What will be clear is that Crockett aided and abetted Eric Lewis, 19, in a premeditated murder, Shandor said.

One way that will be done is to hear testimony from Jonathan Gardner, a firearms investigator for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, who will testify the assault rifle shell casings found at the scene of Dill’s killing are the same as shell casings found later at the house on John Street where Crockett was living at the time, Shandor said.

Another is to hear from Keith B. Tillis Jr., 19, who was scheduled to testify late Wednesday that Crockett was one of two men who got out of a green Pontiac Bonneville that day and fired guns at a man in a pickup truck, Shandor said.

Tillis also testified in Lewis’ aggravated murder trial last month. Lewis was convicted of complicity to aggravated murder and sentenced to 33 years to life for his role in the crime. He was the man firing the handgun, Shandor said.

The driver and owner of the car, Bertrum Moore, 18, of Whitney Avenue, was convicted of complicity to aggravated murder in June and sentenced to 20 years to life.

Tillis was the fourth person in the car, but charges were dropped against him in exchange for his testimony, Shandor said.

That fact and others about Tillis’ testimony is of great interest to Atty. Samuel G. Amendolara, who represents Crockett.

In his opening statement, Amendolara said jurors should pay close attention to the way Tillis explains why he rode around with Lewis and Moore that day after leaving the Life Skills Academy with them.

“I believe it is not a clear-cut case,” Amendolara said. “We have three people in that car. The question is whether one of them was Gary Crockett.”

runyan@vindy.com