Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The suspects are charged with robbery and attempted murder.
STAFF REPORT
YOUNGSTOWN — Expert witnesses are expected to testify today that Taran D. Helms’ DNA was found on the gun, mask, coat and hat used during the shooting and robbery of a KFC manager.
A shell casing collected after Joe Kaluza was robbed and a shot was fired from the semiautomatic firearm found near the crime scene, Michael Roberts testified Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. “It was indeed fired from that gun,” he said.
Roberts is a forensic scientist with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in Richfield. Under cross-examination, he acknowledged that no fired bullet was submitted to BCI for analysis.
He was the last witness for the day.
The trial for Taran D. Helms, 23, of West Hylda Avenue, and his girlfriend, Hattie L. Gilbert, 20, of East Judson Avenue, resumes this morning. Both are accused of robbery, kidnapping and attempted murder.
The state’s witness list includes three additional BCI experts who are expected to testify about the DNA evidence collected at or near the crime scene on South Avenue. Kasey Shidel, assistant county prosecutor, said in opening statements that Helms’ DNA showed up on the evidence.
The trial began Monday with dramatic testimony from Kaluza, left a paraplegic after being shot in the neck on his way to make a $300 bank deposit for KFC on March 24. He attends the trial in a motorized wheelchair positioned behind the gallery; the apparatus that helps him breathe makes a soft whooshing sound.
“It’s going good today,” Kaluza said with a smile during a court recess Tuesday afternoon. “It’s going a lot better than yesterday. I don’t know why; I just think it’s going better.”
Shidel has whittled his witness list from 27 to four. The defense lawyers, John B. Juhasz and Martin Yavorcik, expect the state to conclude its case today. Closing arguments could take place Thursday, Juhasz said.
Helms, dressed in a shiny burnished-gold shirt, sat at the defense table taking notes on a yellow legal pad. Across the table sat his co-defendant in a red sweater, her braided hair pulled back.
Gilbert has admitted to detectives she staked Kaluza out for roughly two weeks before the robbery, saying she needed the money because she was being evicted by her sister.
The prosecution’s first witness on Tuesday was Lou Ciavarella, a Youngstown Police Department crime lab technician. When asked about his duties, Ciavarella said he collects evidence and photographs it — adding that since the O.J. Simpson case, everything comes into question.
He testified that on March 28, when the vehicle in question — a blue Saturn — was found at 703-705 E. Judson Ave., he was called to the scene. Ciavarella said he photographed and collected a pink coat found on a mattress at 705 E. Judson. He also photographed scratches on the Saturn.
Gilbert, whose lawyer said she wore the pink jacket March 24, according to her attorney, is accused of staging a car accident on South Avenue by pulling her Saturn in front of Kaluza’s Kia SUV. Helms is accused of then approaching to carry out the robbery and shooting the KFC manager in the neck.
Detective Sgt. John Kelty testified Tuesday about interviews he conducted with Helms and Gilbert. Juhasz, Helms’ lawyer, objected to the questioning that involved hearsay evidence, and Judge Timothy E. Franken called a sibebar conference. Afterward, the judge explained to the jury there would be a continuing objection to the line of questioning.
Each time Shidel asked a question, Juhasz objected and the judge overruled. Kelty would wait for the objection and then answer the question.
Kelty said Gilbert told him she heard a gun go off and saw in her rearview mirror Kaluza slump to the right in his car — and blood.
The detective said Gilbert consented to a search of her Saturn, and Helms’ driver’s license was found in a wallet in the car. The jacket in Helms’ driver’s license photo was the same as described by a witness to the crime.
Helms, meanwhile, according to Kelty, denied involvement — saying he had been at a female’s house. He described her only as “T.”
Kelty said Helms claimed to be looking for a job the morning of the robbery and staying at “T”’s house — although he was unable to provide a last name for the female or an address, other than the Hillman Street-Warren Avenue area.
Shidel asked whether, in the six months since Kaluza was shot, Helms provided any alibi that police could verify?
“No,” Kelty said from the witness stand.
The lead detective on the case said police would have checked any information Helms could have provided to prove his whereabouts that morning.
Detective Sgt. Mike Lambert testified about the search for the shooting suspect. The search turned up a gun near a fence.
An Austintown police dog found a discarded jacket in a rear yard on Auburndale Avenue that police said was Helms’.
The inside-out jacket had a mask in one sleeve, Robert Mauldin, a YPD crime lab technician, testified.
Ashlinn Sykes shuffled into court, hands in the back pockets of her jeans, a somewhat reluctant witness against her ex-fianc . They have one child together.
Sykes reached an agreement with prosecutors that requires her to testify against Helms. Sykes is charged with obstruction of justice in the Kaluza case and hopes her testimony for the prosecution will favorably affect that charge. Police charged her, saying she lied about Helms’ whereabouts after the crime.
Sykes said she and Helms had breakfast at Denny’s on U.S. Route 224 in Boardman the morning of March 24. She said Helms told her he had to go get Hattie Gilbert because they “had things to do.”
Sykes said she learned what had happened to Kaluza through the newspaper. She recalled being at the KFC on South Avenue several times with Helms when his mother, Kimberly Helms, worked there.
Sykes testified she was at Helms’ father’s house on March 28, the day he was arrested. Earlier that day, police had been to her apartment on the East Side, looking for Helms.
When asked if she’d ever burned any of Helms’ clothes, Sykes said no. She added she once set their apartment on fire, and some of his clothes may have burned then — “but other than that, no.”