Jurors hear two sides as Antonio Jackson trial opens

YOUNGSTOWN — Antonio Jackson brutally violated and fatally shot Sierra Y. Slaton before “dumping her like trash” in McKelvey Lake, Jennifer McLaughlin, assistant county prosecutor, told jurors this morning.

“This was not a random crime. This was a cruel, calculated series of events,” McLaughlin said in her opening statement in Jackson’s capital murder trial.

“You won’t be able to rely on the evidence they present to you,” John B. Juhasz, the lead defense lawyer, said of McLaughlin and the other assistant county prosecutor, Dawn Cantalamessa.

“What you’ll hear is certainly a far cry from the proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you need,” Juhasz said, adding that witness accounts won’t match the physical evidence presented in the case.

Jackson, 28, of Summer Street, is charged with the Aug. 6, 2005, aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and rape of Slaton, 19, whose body was found floating in the lake the day after she died.

Presiding over Jackson’s trial is Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

The coroner’s office said Slaton died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head after being shot at 3:13 a.m.

The prosecution’s first witness was the victim’s mother, Rose Slaton, who testified her daughter left the family’s Vestal Road residence abruptly and without explanation after receiving a telephone call at 12:40 a.m. on Aug. 6, 2005.

Slaton said she asked her daughter: “‘Where are you going at this time of the morning?,’’’ received no response and never heard from her daughter again.

Read more in Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com