Sentencing today for 2 attackers of Kaluza

Trial against Hattie Gilbert and Taran Helms

Gallery

Suspects found guilty in the March 24 robbery and shooting of KFC manager Joseph Kaluza

The KFC manager and his family are expected to give victim-impact statements in court this morning.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Two people convicted in the March 24 shooting and robbery of a South Avenue restaurant manager will learn their fates today.

Taran Helms, 23, of West Hylda Avenue, and Hattie Gilbert, 20, of East Judson Avenue, are scheduled for sentencing this morning before Judge Timothy E. Franken of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

A six-man, six-woman jury last week convicted Helms of attempted murder, aggravated robbery, felonious assault and kidnapping, all with specifications that a gun was used, in the shooting of Joseph Kaluza.

Jurors convicted Gilbert of complicity to all of the same charges.

The maximum each could face is 50 years in prison.

Kaluza, manager of the South Avenue KFC, left the restaurant the morning of the shooting to make a bank deposit.

Gilbert, who admitted to detectives that she watched Kaluza to learn his routine, then staged a car accident with him. Helms walked up to Kaluza’s car, shot him in the neck, took the deposit, moved the car to a side street and demanded more money, authorities have said.

The robbers got away with $300, and Kaluza, who is the father of two special-needs children, was left paralyzed from the neck down.

Members of the Kaluza family are expected to deliver victim-impact statements this morning before the judge imposes the sentences.

Kaluza testified the first day of the trial and remained in the courtroom through the duration, seated in his motorized wheelchair.

“They got what they deserved,” he said after the judge read jurors’ verdicts.

Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Kasey Shidel told the jury that money was the motive. Gilbert was being thrown out of her house, and Helms, who was her boyfriend, was homeless, living out of Gilbert’s car.