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Girlfriend in manslaughter trial admits she knew boyfriend had gun
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Testimony on Wednesday in the Regan Jelks involuntary-manslaughter trial confirmed the contention of an assistant prosecutor that Jelks knew her boyfriend had a gun when he got into her car a short time before he was killed.
A videotaped police interview of Jelks contained her admission that she saw a handgun in Taemarr Walker’s pants when he arrived at a Warren tavern to pick her up.
She allowed him to drive her from the II Hype tavern on Mahoning Avenue to Risher Road, where Walker was shot to death in a confrontation with a Warren police officer.
The question jurors will be asked sometime today is whether the decision to get in the car with him — knowing that he had a gun — is sufficient evidence that she improperly handled firearms in a motor vehicle, and if that offense was the “proximate cause” of Walker’s death Oct. 19, 2013.
Testimony in the case concluded Wednesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court with Jelks’ attorneys declining to present any witnesses. Closing arguments will take place at 9:30 a.m. today, followed by jury deliberations.
Late Tuesday and early Wednesday, jurors heard close to three hours of videotaped interviews conducted at the Warren Police Department with Jelks several hours after Walker was killed.
Early in the interviews, her answers were nearly impossible to understand because of her crying, but she told two investigators with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation she didn’t know there were two guns in her car “till the police came.”
She was talking about the run-in with police officer Michael Krafcik on Risher Road Southwest that occurred after Walker drove her car into a ditch, leading to the confrontation that killed Walker.
Investigators continually asked Jelks whether Walker had a dispute with anyone at the II Hype that night or any other reason to be angry. She said no. They were searching for a reason why Walker had guns and was wearing latex gloves that night, but Special Agent Charlie Snyder said Jelks never offered up an explanation.
She initially denied knowing the guns were in the car and said she didn’t even know he was wearing latex gloves until the confrontation with Krafcik.
But a short time before she left the police station, she admitted seeing Walker with the handgun when he arrived at the II Hype to pick her up.
After the shooting, police found an assault rifle in the back seat, and Walker was found with the other gun in his hand — a gun Krafcik said Walker grabbed from under the front seat moments before he was shot to death.
Jelks’ attorneys, James Gentile and Ronald Yarwood, asked Judge Peter Kontos on Wednesday to dismiss the charges without presenting them to the jury, triggering brief oral arguments from Gentile and assistant Trumbull County Prosecutor Chris Becker.
Gentile argued that Jelks could not have foreseen the possibility that harm would come to Walker if she allowed him to drive her car with guns in it.
But Becker said Jelks is responsible because “she determines who gets in [her car], who drives it.”