Kaluza details assault

Taran Helms said he wasn’t at the crime scene and can’t be found guilty.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — KFC Manager Joseph Kaluza said he knew something was wrong when a blue car cut him off on South Avenue as he was carrying the eatery’s $300 bank deposit on the morning of March 24.

Kaluza said in trial testimony Tuesday he immediately called his area manager on his cellular phone.

“I told my area manager I thought I was going to get robbed,” Kaluza said, adding he also called 911 to report the accident.

The woman driving the blue car, who wore a pink coat, got out and asked to use his cellular phone, then quickly returned it to him. As soon as the woman returned the phone, Kaluza remembers getting shot.

“As soon as I got shot, I couldn’t move,’’ said Kaluza. He testified in Mahoning County Common Pleas court from his motorized wheelchair.

He was the first witness as testimony began Monday in the jury trial of two suspects in the robbery and shooting that left Kaluza paralyzed from the neck down.

The trial of Taran D. Helms and his girlfriend, Hattie L. Gilbert, is before Judge Timothy E. Franken. Both are charged with attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated robbery and kidnapping, with firearm specifications to all counts.

Kaluza recalled hearing the gunman tell the woman driving the blue car to leave the scene, which she did.

The gunman then put the red SUV Kaluza was driving in drive and steered it to a nearby house, then put it in park and removed the bank deposit bag from the console.

“Where’s the rest of the money or I’m going to shoot you in the head,” Kaluza quoted the robber saying. Kaluza testified there was no more money.

A man arrived in a construction truck to ask if everything was OK, and the gunman said yes — and the construction truck drove away.

The gunman continued looking for more money in the car, tore off a KFC bag being used as a trash bag in the car and left the scene, Kaluza said.

Helms, 23, of West Hylda Avenue, is charged with robbing and shooting Kaluza. Police said Gilbert, 20, of East Judson Avenue, drove her car in the staged crash that preceded the robbery and shooting.

The robber got only $300 because it was the day after Easter and business had been slow on Easter Day, Kaluza said. On a normal Sunday, the receipts to be deposited would have been $1,000 to $1,500, Kaluza testified.

Kaluza said he followed his usual routine of having an employee hand him the bank deposit bag as he drove through KFC’s drive-up window.

Kimberly Nance, the KFC cashier who handed Kaluza the bank deposit bag, testified Kimberly Helms formerly worked at the KFC store and was in training to be a shift manager. Nance said Helms’ son, Taran Helms, visited his mother at work there on more than two occasions.

Frank Harrison, a Western Reserve Transit Authority bus driver, said he saw a blue Saturn emerge from a muffler shop across the street from the KFC at South and Indianola avenues. Harrison, who was driving south on WRTA’s South Avenue route, narrated for the jury as video from his bus’ front video surveillance camera showed the Saturn cutting off the red SUV Kaluza was driving.

Harrison said he saw Kaluza using a cellular phone after Kaluza rear-ended the Saturn, and he noticed a woman was driving the Saturn.

“You see accidents like this every day,” Harrison said. “I didn’t think it was life-threatening, so I continued on my route,” the bus driver testified.

Kandace Johnson of nearby Beechwood Place said she saw the crash from her front porch. She said she saw the woman driving the Saturn walk back to the red SUV, and she saw the driver of the SUV talking on his cellular phone.

She testified she then saw a man wearing a black coat walk out into South Avenue behind the SUV and fire a shot into its driver’s side, and she heard the gunshot.

The gunman then walked to the blue Saturn, spoke to the woman driving it and pointed south down South Avenue shortly before the Saturn left and continued south.

The gunman walked back to the red SUV, opened its door and moved it into a Hilton Avenue driveway. A tow truck came, and the gunman ran away, she recalled. She couldn’t identify the gunman because she couldn’t see his face.

David White, the Ludt’s tow truck driver called to the scene, said he saw a man inside the SUV, which was in a Hilton Avenue driveway, as another man left it and ran through yards. The fleeing man, who carried a rolled-up object, wore a hat and had something covering his face, White testified.

White backed up his truck into a nearby convenience store parking lot after he saw the man run away from the car.

While in the parking lot, people pointed out that there were shell casings on South Avenue. White picked up the casings and wrapped them in a five dollar bill. He later turned them over to the YPD as evidence.

The attack was a planned attempt to kill Kaluza, a prosecutor told jurors.

“These brutal, terroristic acts were caused for a measly $300,” Kasey C. Shidel, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, said in his opening statement. “You will have no choice but to find the two defendants behind me guilty of those charges.”

Helms fled on foot behind houses with the bank deposit, Shidel said.

A police dog tracked Helms’ scent and found his gun, coat, mask and hat, all of which an expert will testify contained Helms’ DNA, Shidel said. A forensic scientist will testify that Kaluza’s blood was found on Helms’ coat, he added.

Gilbert confessed to police she planned the robbery and staged the accident, Shidel said. Gilbert needed money because she was being evicted, he added.

Two weeks earlier, Gilbert had purchased the bullets that were found in her car, Shidel said.

Rather than having his lawyer, John B. Juhasz, give an opening statement, Helms gave his own opening statement, saying he wasn’t at the crime scene.

“The only thing you can do is find me not guilty because I wasn’t there,” he told the jurors. In his brief statement, Helms said no witnesses can identify him and none of his DNA was found in or on Gilbert’s car.

Gilbert’s lawyer, Martin E. Yavorcik, gave a brief opening statement telling jurors Gilbert admits planning the robbery, driving the car that was involved in the crash and wearing a pink coat that day, which she later retrieved for police.

However, Yavorcik said the state would not be able to show Gilbert was complicit in attempted murder, felonious assault or kidnapping.

A computer program was used to search for vehicles by geographic area and YPD Lieutenant Mark Milstead said he confined the search to Mahoning County and came up with approximately 125 cars.

Gilbert was on the list of registered cars, and Milstead said she looked most like the woman in the WRTA video.