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Jurors continue to mull evidence
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Everson
YOUNGSTOWN
Jury deliberations in the murder trial of a 25-year-old city man will continue today after prosecutors and defense attorneys offered closing statements to the jury Wednesday.
Reginald Everson is on trial on the aggravated-murder charge with life specifications before Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Prosecutors contend Everson, while free on $15,000 bond for his involvement in a 2007 robbery case, shot and killed 18-year-old Terrell Roland of East Avondale Avenue in Roland’s driveway in March 2008.
Roland was standing in the driveway talking to his friend, Mickele Glenn, who was armed and wearing a bulletproof vest, at the time of the shooting. Prosecutors believe the shots were meant for Glenn, but defense attorneys argued that Glenn possibly shot his friend accidentally, then covered up the crime.
Martin Desmond, an assistant county prosecutor, called the suggestion that Glenn fired the fatal shots “beyond absurd.” He told jurors Glenn would have had to fire the shots, hide the spent shell casing and reload his weapon all in a matter of seconds before Roland’s family made it to the outside of the house and dialed 911.
“He [Everson] is driving around with a gun in his car. His family has an ongoing feud with Mickele Glenn. ... He sees Mickele Glenn and fires not once, but twice,” Desmond said. “Plain and simple, that is what happened. ... There is only one verdict in this case: guilty.”
Rhys Cartwright-Jones, representing Everson, painted a scenario for the jury by which he says Glenn could have fired the shots that killed Roland. He said Glenn could have accidentally fired the shots while attempting to pull his gun from his waistband.
“It is not that far flung. You have a guy with no gun experience with a gun in his waistband under a bulky bulletproof vest who shot the guy standing behind him,” he said. “We say there is not proof beyond reasonable doubt. We say that because there is another possibility, and we have given it to you.”
Cartwright-Jones spent the majority of his summation discussing the possibility of Glenn firing the shots and statements made on a recorded call to 911 at the time of the shooting.
Desmond played the recording for the jury earlier in the week in which Carol Roland, the victim’s mother, can be heard begging emergency personnel for assistance, begging her son not to die and telling the operator her son said “Reg” shot him.
Everson already is in prison on a charge stemming from the robbery of an Auto Zone store in May 2007.
He had been charged with murder and aggravated robbery in the shooting death of Edward Agee, a store employee, during a robbery attempt at the business on McCartney Road on the East Side. The murder charge and a gun specification subsequently were dropped under a plea agreement.
Everson, who was sentenced in December 2010, is serving a 10-year term on the aggravated-robbery charge.