Man convicted of killing wife in ’92 seeks reversal

By Peter H. Milliken

The court took the unusual step of permitting a delayed appeal.

YOUNGSTOWN — A man who says he was wrongly convicted of fatally shooting his wife more than 16 years ago wants an appellate court to reverse his conviction and order him freed from the Trumbull Correctional Institution.

In a brief filed on his behalf Monday with the 7th District Court of Appeals, Robert E. Wilson alleged the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, that his conviction “is against the manifest weight of the evidence,” and that trial Judge Charles J. Bannon erred in not granting a defense request for a mistrial due to alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

On Nov. 5, 1993, Judge Bannon sentenced Wilson, then 25, to 24 years to life in prison for the murder of his estranged wife, Tonya, with firearm specifications, unlawful possession of a dangerous ordnance, illegal gun possession and drug abuse.

Wilson, of Browning Avenue, pleaded guilty to illegal gun possession and the drug charge, but a jury convicted him of the other charges.

At Wilson’s sentencing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Prosecutor Kenneth Bailey said Wilson killed his estranged wife after ramming her car while under a restraining order to stay away from her.

Wilson maintained his innocence in his wife’s death, but said then he’d take his punishment “like a man.”

Wilson’s initial appeal was pending for more than three years, with his appellate counsel never having filed a brief arguing the case on his behalf, before the appeals court dismissed the case in 1997, according to the new appellate brief filed Monday by Wilson’s lawyer, Jana L. De- Loach of Akron.

Saying the merits of his prior appeal and request for a new trial were never considered, the appellate court took the unusual step of granting permission this year for a delayed appeal. Normally, appeals must be filed within 30 days after sentencing.

In the appellate brief, DeLoach says she will soon file a motion for a new trial based on evidence not available at the 1993 trial. Wilson’s 1998 motion for a new trial was dismissed in 2001 without a hearing.

Tonya Wilson, 25, died of a bullet wound to the back of her neck at about 2 a.m. on July 22, 1992, while she was in her car after the quarrel.

In the confrontation, the Wilsons were driving nose-to-nose in separate cars going downhill on Stansbury Drive, with Wilson going forward and his wife backing up as shots were fired, DeLoach’s brief said.

Almost immediately after the shooting, Joe Oliver, an off-duty security guard, left the shooting scene, went home and told his brother he might have shot someone, the brief says. Oliver had a loaded gun on the seat of his car, saw the Wilsons arguing and heard shots.

Saying he grabbed his gun in self-defense, Oliver testified in the trial that he saw a gun in Robert Wilson’s hand, pointing in his direction. Oliver said he saw a gun flash coming from Robert Wilson’s car before it hit the victim’s car, and Oliver said he then fired two shots in the air. Oliver later died after being shot over an accident involving his car, DeLoach said.

A defense expert, forensic scientist Larry DeHus, testified in the 1993 trial that the gun found in Robert Wilson’s car could not have fired the fatal bullet, DeLoach said.

DeLoach’s brief argues the ballistics evidence from the trial shows the fatal bullet was fired from behind the victim, not in front of her. At that trial, an eyewitness testified she saw gunshots coming from behind the victim’s car, DeLoach noted.

“There was one person standing behind Ms. Wilson’s car shooting a gun. That person was Joe Oliver. Joe Oliver killed Ms. Wilson — not her husband,” DeLoach’s brief said.

The allegation of prosecutorial misconduct says Bailey disobeyed Judge Bannon’s order not to show an eyewitness a prior statement the witness made to police that contradicted his trial testimony. In his testimony, that witness, a friend of Oliver’s, testified he did not see Wilson with a gun even though he had told police the opposite.

Bailey, now an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said he doesn’t fully recall the details of the 16-year-old case and that he couldn’t comment without reviewing the case file and trial transcript. Bailey noted that he has handled between 300 and 400 murder cases and tried more than 100 of them in his 35 years as a prosecutor.

Neither Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, who didn’t take office until January 1997, nor Rhys Cartwright-Jones, the assistant Mahoning County prosecutor who will defend the prosecution against Wilson’s appeal, could be reached for comment.