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Statements from suspects in Kaluza case used as evidence
YOUNGSTOWN — Statements to police by suspects in the robbery and shooting that left KFC manager Joseph Kaluza paralyzed will be admitted into evidence in their trial, a judge has ruled.
Judge Timothy E. Franken also ruled that Taran D. Helms and his girlfriend, Hattie L. Gilbert, will be tried together beginning Sept. 8 in his courtroom.
The Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge made his rulings Thursday after conducting evidence suppression hearings last Friday, during which he heard and viewed the warnings police gave the suspects at the beginning of their video interviews.
Judge Franken overruled motions by Attys. John B. Juhasz and Martin E. Yavorcik, who represent Helms and Gilbert, respectively, to exclude their statements to police from trial evidence and to give the defendants separate trials.
Helms, 23, of West Hylda Avenue, and Gilbert, 20, of East Judson Avenue, are both charged with attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated robbery, and kidnapping, with firearm specifications to all counts.
Helms is charged with robbing and shooting Kaluza. Police said Gilbert drove her car in the staged crash that preceded the robbery and shooting.
Both face between six and 50 years in prison if convicted of all counts and specifications.
Kaluza, manager of the KFC on South Avenue, was driving southbound on South Avenue on March 24, when a Saturn driven by a woman wearing a pink coat cut him off and caused a crash, which was captured by a Western Reserve Transit Authority bus surveillance camera, police said.
The gunman pushed Kaluza’s car a short distance into a Hilton Avenue driveway, demanded money and received the $300 bank deposit. Kaluza, 42, of Youngstown, was shot in the head and neck. He survived but is paralyzed from the neck down.
Police used a database to trace the Saturn seen on the bus video to Gilbert, and found it behind a vacant house adjacent to her residence. Gilbert confessed to being involved in the crash and named Helms as her accomplice, police said.
The judge said police warned Helms and Gilbert of their right to remain silent at the beginning of their video statements, and the judge said he did not see any “intimidation, coercion or deception.”
Both knowingly, voluntary and intelligently waived their rights and signed forms saying they understood and waived those rights, the judge ruled.
The judge noted Helms is a high school graduate and a certified mechanic and had been warned of his rights in prior encounters with police. Gilbert was a Youngstown State University student, he noted.
Judge Franken also ruled that statements Gilbert made to Lt. Mark Milstead in her residence are admissible as evidence because she was not in police custody until Milstead arrested her outside her residence.
When Milstead asked Gilbert if she knew why he was there, she replied it was probably because she was involved in a recent accident on South Avenue, Milstead testified at the hearing.
The lieutenant said he then asked her if she was wearing a pink coat when the crash occurred, and she said she was. He then asked her to retrieve it, which she did, Milstead testified.
The judge said he found Gilbert’s testimony that Milstead was verbally abusive to be credible, but irrelevant, because she made no statements thereafter at her residence.
Because of the prosecution’s assurance that it won’t use the portion of Gilbert’s statement that implicates Helms during the trial, the judge ruled: “Joinder of these defendants [for trial] is not prejudicial.”