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Officer testifies at murder trial
The defense had a trooper use scissors to make icons to add to his high-tech map of the crime scene.
LISBON — A Wellsville police officer testified that people were shouting, “The guy he shot is down here!” while he was arresting Eric M. Dillard.
The officer, Tony Mancuso, testified Wednesday in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court as Dillard’s trial got under way.
Mancuso said he was about to have dinner at a local restaurant around 9 p.m. April 22, 2008, when he received a call about the shooting at 906 Commerce St.
The house was the home of Dillard, 31, of Wellsville, who is on trial on a charge of murder in the shooting death of Jamie A. Farley, 35, of East Liverpool.
As police responded, Mancuso said an elderly lady was pointing toward the shooting scene.
The officer said he saw the defendant “with a gun in his hand.”
Mancuso said Dillard put the gun down and walked toward police.
There were several shell casings at the scene. Mancuso testified there was also a live round of ammunition jammed in the .40-caliber pistol.
Blood was found in the street near Dillard’s home and at the intersection of Commerce Street and 10th Street.
Farley told police before he died that Dillard had shot him.
Farley supposedly went to Dillard’s house to get money. Farley arrived in a Chevrolet Cavalier driven by his girlfriend, Shirley Hackney. In the car was Hackney’s mother, Andrea, and Hackney’s 9-year-old son and 15-month-old daughter.
Mancuso said he and another Wellsville officer went back to the police station and brought back yellow warning tape to block off the intersection of 10th and Commerce. He and other officers did a search of a nearby open area and found nothing.
Mancuso said Dillard was cooperative.
Trooper Todd Jester of the Ohio State Highway Patrol testified he was called out about 1 a.m. April 23 to help make a map of the shooting scene.
He has special equipment that can re-create accidents and other scenes to scale, he said.
Defense lawyer James Hartford asked the trooper why he had not included the Cavalier and a Hummer vehicle in the map.
Jester said they were outside of the crime-scene area.
At Hartford’s request, Jester used a ruler and a calculator to place the two vehicles on the crime scene map.
Hartford told the trooper, “Cut out your rendering for us.” A clerk produced a pair of scissors, and the icons for the vehicles were added to the crime scene map.
Prosecutor Robert Herron objected, but Judge C. Ashley Pike allowed the map and additions into evidence.
wilkinson@vindy.com