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Testimony continues in Carter trial
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Detective Sgt. Rick Spotleson is a veteran police officer who has worked all kinds of special details. When Kalontae Carter told him April 29, 2013, that he and his uncle went to commit a “bop” at an Elm Street home where a man was killed and the uncle was wounded, he did not need a street dictionary for translation.
Spotleson, the lead investigator in the death of Kristopher Stuart, 26, testified Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that Carter, 20, told him that he and his uncle, Dejuan Thomas, went to commit a “bop” at Stuart’s home and that Carter had told him the term meant they went to the home to do a drug deal.
However, the next day, Spotleson testified, Carter called him from his hospital bed and said he needed to speak to the detective right away. Spotleson drove to the hospital, where Carter told him they went to rob Stuart instead.
Spotleson said in his experience, the term “bop” means robbery, not a drug deal.
“That’s the slang I’m accustomed to,” Spotleson said.
It was the second day of testimony in the trial of Carter, who faces charges of complicity to aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and felonious assault for the death of Stuart, who was found April 29, 2013, shot to death in his Elm Street home with a revolver right next to him. Thomas, 33, was shot and killed outside a South Side bar in February, a killing that had nothing to do with Stuart’s death. The man who killed Thomas pleaded guilty and is currently serving a prison sentence.
Jurors were seated Tuesday afternoon before Judge Lou D’Apolito.
Spotleson testified that Carter told him in his first interview that he and Thomas were in the house and that Thomas and Stuart were arguing; Stuart tried to rob Thomas, and gunfire rang out. Thomas was wounded as was Carter, who was shot in the arm, and Stuart was killed.
However, Spotleson said the next day Carter changed his story – that Thomas was there to rob Stuart.
“Now, he switches it around,” Spotleson said.
Earlier, Mahoning County forensic pathologist Dr. Joseph Ohr testified about the wounds that killed Stuart. Dr. Ohr said that Stuart had been shot 11 times.