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Jurors recommend death for Wilks
Photo
Willie Wilks leaves the Mahoning County Common Pleas courtroom after a jury recommended a death sentence for him Monday. With him is his attorney, Ron Yarwood. Yarwood had no comment on the verdict.
By Joe Gorman
and Jeanne Starmack
YOUNGSTOWN
A jury unanimously recommended the death penalty for Willie Wilks, who was found guilty earlier this month of killing one person and trying to kill two others.
The jury returned its verdict at 5:40 p.m. Monday in Judge Lou A. D’Apolito’s courtroom in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Wilks’ brother, Tracy Wilks of Austintown, said afterward that he had been expecting it.
“When you get a jury from Poland, Struthers, Boardman, Canfield and nobody from Youngstown ... I had already braced myself,” he said.
He said the jury, which began deliberations at 2:30 p.m., didn’t take long to reach its decision.
“I expected them to be in there longer than that,” he said.
He said he believes Judge D’Apolito will go along with the jury’s recommendation.
“They said death, that’s what they’re going to do,” he said.
He also said he believes his brother is innocent.
“I believe him 100 percent,” he said.
Willie Wilks had asked members of that same jury Monday to see him as a human being. Wilks, 42, of Elm Street, also denied killing 20-year-old Ororo Wilkins last May on a Park Avenue porch on the North Side.
“I would like to appeal to the humanity of each person in this jury, to deeply view me as a member of the human race,” Wilks said, reading to jurors in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court from a handwritten statement.
Jurors convicted Wilks on April 14 of aggravated murder with death-penalty specifications in the May 21, 2013, shooting death of 20-year-old Ororo Wilkins. He also was convicted of felonious assault in the wounding of 25-year-old Alex Morales and two counts of attempted aggravated murder for shooting at Morales and Ororo Wilkins’ brother, Willie Wilkins.
Wilks is eligible for the death penalty because jurors found that he was guilty of murdering Ororo Wilkins while trying to kill two or more people.
In Monday’s phase of the trial, jurors were presented evidence by defense attorneys on why Wilks’ life should be spared.
Wilks apologized for the death of Ororo Wilkins, but said he did not commit the crime. However, he added that he cannot change jurors’ opinions on that, so he asked them to give him leniency.
“I know and God almighty knows that I am not guilty of these charges,” Wilks said. “Right now, all that matters is what you believe backed by the full force of the law.”
Wilks said he wants to be spared so he can help mentor his 3-year-old son. Despite being in prison, Wilks said he would be able to provide guidance and also serve as an example as to what can happen when bad choices are made.
“My position will be seen as an example of where bad choices will land him,” Wilks said.
Wilks cried when his mother, Patricia Wilks, testified and told jurors she left Alabama for Youngstown when her son was nine months old and that was the last time he had ever had contact with his father.
Wilks’ brother Tracy and the mother of his child, Tikisha D’Altorio, testified that Wilks is a doting father to his son and provided for his upbringing and visited him every day until he was arrested in Ororo Wilkins’ death.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Willie Wilkins was upset at Wilks, because Wilks had a bank card that belonged to his mother. The two had a confrontation, and Wilks pulled a gun on Willie Wilkins until Morales calmed things and got the card.
Later, Willie Wilkins called his mother, upset that she stayed with Wilks, who was her boyfriend, despite him pulling a gun on her son, and Wilks came on the phone and the two argued.
Next, prosecutors said Wilks drove to the Park Avenue home with an AK-47 assault rifle and shot Morales in the back as he was on the porch. Morales dropped a baby. Ororo Wilkins was reaching for the baby when she was shot in the head and died instantly. Wilks also fired a shot at Willie Wilkins, who was in an upstairs room but missed before fleeing.
Wilks also apologized to Judge D’Apolito for kicking a hole in the wall when jurors returned their guilty verdicts.