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‘He shot her 13 times,’ witness testifies in trial in ’05 killing
The victim was fatally shot and dumped in McKelvey Lake ‘like trash,’ the prosecutor says.
YOUNGSTOWN — Antonio Jackson admitted killing Sierra Y. Slaton in a conversation with his friends several days after Slaton was shot to death and placed in McKelvey Lake, a witness testified Wednesday in Jackson’s capital murder trial.
Leslie Tensley said Jackson made the admission in a conversation that she overheard Aug. 10, 2005, in her South Side residence.
“He said he shot her 13 times,” Tensley, 30, testified on the first day of Jackson’s trial.
“He said that if I told anybody, I would be killed,” Tensley said, quoting Jackson telling her: “‘You don’t want to end up like Sierra.”’
After reading a newspaper story about Slaton’s body having been found floating in the lake, Tensley said she went voluntarily to the police station and reported Jackson’s remarks, in a video statement to Detective John Kelty of the city police department Aug. 12.
Tensley identified Jackson in court as he sat at the defense table wearing a long-sleeved black dress shirt and dark pants.
Under questioning by Jennifer McLaughlin, assistant county prosecutor, Tensley said she was testifying reluctantly under a subpoena from the prosecution.
“You can’t guarantee my safety,’’ Tensley explained, noting that her house has been broken into twice.
Jackson brutally violated and fatally shot Slaton before “dumping her like trash” in the lake, McLaughlin told the seven-man, five-woman jury Wednesday just after the jurors returned from a visit to the lake on the city’s East Side.
“This was not a random crime. This was a cruel, calculated series of events,” McLaughlin said in her opening statement.
“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. Slaton was shot 10 times in her head, once in her abdomen, and twice in her right leg, the report said.
Dr. Robert C. Belding, former deputy county coroner, testified seven of the 10 gunshot wounds to her head were within a two-inch circle. Dr. Belding, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Slaton, said he could not determine the distance from which the shots were fired.
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.
“She very seldom went anywhere without letting me know where she was going,” Slaton testified.
Later that day, she filed with police a missing person’s report; and, the following day, police told her that her daughter was dead, she testified.
The Rev. Kenneth Bills Jr. of Liberty Road, which borders McKelvey Lake, testified he heard multiple gunshots in the wee hours of the morning on Aug. 6, 2005, followed by the loud and angry sound of a black male voice. Bills is pastor of churches in Cleveland and Youngstown.
Terry Walker, of Elliot Lane, testified he found a woman’s body floating in the lake off Liberty Road early on the evening of Aug. 7, 2005, together with a nearby pair of shoes on the shore.
Walker said he notified a neighbor, who called police to the scene.
milliken@vindy.com