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Attorneys: Suppress items in Agee case
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Kevin D. Agee Jr.
YOUNGSTOWN
Attorneys are asking a Mahoning County Common Pleas judge to suppress several items that may be used during the trial for a city man facing the death penalty.
Kevin D. Agee Jr., 25, of West Ravenwood Avenue, appeared Tuesday afternoon before Judge Maureen Sweeney for an evidence- suppression hearing. The court has not yet issued a ruling.
Agee is charged in the 2010 aggravated murder of Thomas Repchic, 74, with gun and death-penalty specifications, and the attempted murder of Repchic’s wife, Jacqueline, also 74, with a gun specification.
The Repchics were shot in what police believe was a case of mistaken identity in a feud between two rival factions.
Agee, through his attorneys James Gentile and Reese Cartwright-Jones, is asking the court to suppress a statement Agee made to police saying he was the driver of the car used in the shooting, as well as items recovered during the search of a Chalmers Street home occupied by Agee and family members.
Prosecutors played a lengthy police interview in which Agee, who did not finish high school, was read his rights then repeatedly claimed to have no knowledge about who is responsible for shooting the Repchics.
He would admit only to having been in the SUV believed to have been used in the shooting long before the crime and occasionally hanging out with co-defendant Aubrey Toney.
Eventually, Agee’s grandmother appears on the video and asks to speak with him. She can be heard, sometimes through tears, telling Agee to make it easy on himself and tell police the truth — that he was in fact the driver of the truck at the time of the shooting.
“You don’t owe him [Toney] anything to hold back the truth because you are not the shooter. Just tell them you were the driver; tell the truth,” the woman said. “You do not deserve to be in this mess. You had no idea what he was going to do.”
Prosecutors did not play the video past Agee’s exchange with his grandmother, but Youngstown Detective Sgt. Daryl Martin said Agee’s mother also spoke with him and shortly after that, Agee admitted being the driver.