Trial in Craigslist shootings winds down in Akron

March 8, 2013 at 12:00a.m.

Akron Beacon Journal

AKRON

Prosecutors in the capital murder trial of Richard Beasley tried Thursday to discredit his testimony that he was targeted to be killed by one of the victims, Scott Davis, in the so-called Craigslist shootings.

Jerry “County” Hood, 30, acknowledged to a Summit County jury that he once was a “patched” member of the Brothers Motorcycle Club and has been associated with the club “my whole life.”

But he strongly denied knowing Davis or writing any of the online Craigslist ads that, according to prosecutors, led to the 2011 slayings of three men and the attempted murder of Davis.

Hood insisted he also did not know the men who were killed, or Beasley’s co-defendant, Brogan Rafferty, now 18.

Since the outset of the case, prosecutors have said Beasley and Rafferty, a former Stow High School student, were responsible for the ads and the shootings.

Hood, who lives on the vast farm property in Noble County where authorities found two of the victims buried in shallow graves, called into question another assertion in Beasley’s testimony: that it was Hood who did much of the work on the online ads.

“I’m very computer illiterate,” Hood told the jury.