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Jury gets Toney case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Assistant Prosecutor Rebecca Doherty told jurors Thursday that Thomas and Jacqueline Repchic had no idea when they were driving on a South Side street on a September Saturday in 2010, that their car was a target for Aubrey Toney.
During closing arguments in the capital-murder trial of Toney before Judge Maureen Sweeney in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Doherty said Toney was looking for the car. That’s because it resembled the car a rival, Ramses Terry, was thought to have been driving.
When he spotted it at East Philadelphia Avenue and Southern Boulevard and fired at it, he thought it was Terry inside, Doherty said. “Mr. Repchic was in a car that was a target. He didn’t know it — had no idea. But he and his wife were targets that day.”
Toney, 33, could face the death penalty if convicted of the Sept. 25, 2010, murder of 74-year-old Thomas Repchic and the wounding of his wife, Jacqueline, then 74, as they drove.
The trial began May 29. Jurors are expected to continue their deliberations today. They received instructions from Judge Sweeney after the closing arguments, which began about 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
Police said Toney was looking for Terry. When he found out Terry was in the area, he borrowed a Dodge Durango from his cousin, Lakeshia Toney, that he used in the shooting.
One of Toney’s lawyers, John Juhasz, urged jurors to base their verdict on the evidence rather than emotion. “This is an evidence-based decision,” he said.
Juhasz said prosecutors failed to deliver on several promises they made in their opening statements. He said they failed to introduce any evidence of a long feud between Toney and Terry, and failed to introduce any evidence that Toney wanted to get back at Terry and was looking for him in the first place.
Defense attorneys rested after calling just one witness, Harold Reeder, who testified he saw Toney at a youth football game at Volney Rogers field about a half-hour before the Repchics were shot and again after the shooting took place.
Toney did not testify, but he did give an opening statement to jurors, denying his involvement in the killings, saying he was nowhere near the crime scene when the Repchics were shot.
Toney could be eligible for the death penalty if jurors find that he killed a person while trying to kill two or more people. Doherty told jurors that police found seven bullet holes in the Repchics’ car and that seven shots also were recorded on a gunfire sensor in the area, which made no doubt that Toney wanted to kill whoever was in the car — even if it was more than one person.
“He’s going to make sure he kills one, two, three, four, how many more people are in there,” Doherty said.
The driver of the Durango, Kevin Agee, 28, was convicted for his role in the crime and was sentenced to 41 years to life in prison. He has refused to testify in this case, so prosecutors played a videotaped portion of a discussion he had with his mother and grandmother as well his end of a cellphone conversation as he was in a police interview room Sept. 28, 2010.
On the videotape, Agee bemoans the fact that somehow police found out a rifle involved in the crime may have been at his home and warns someone on the phone about “snitching,” or telling the police any more.
“Someone told them everything,” Agee said on the phone, drawing out the last word as his mother says in the background, “somebody snitched — somebody told everything.”
He also referred to Toney by his nickname and said when talking to his mother and grandmother that Toney was going to be in a lot of trouble.
The videotape was admitted after Judge Sweeney agreed to a request by prosecutors to designate Agee as unavailable to testify. Defense attorneys Paul Conn and John Juhasz objected and renewed their objection before the tape was played, but Judge Sweeney allowed the tape to be played.
If Toney is found guilty with death-penalty specifications, jurors will return to hear testimony on why Toney’s life should be spared and then deliberate on whether he should be put to death.