Jury still out on woman charged with killing boyfriend shot by cop

WARREN

Jurors in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court went home without reaching a verdict Thursday in the Regan Jelks involuntary manslaughter trial. They will resume deliberations this morning.

During closing arguments, Chris Becker, assistant prosecutor, acknowledged that the young woman on trial “looks like a nice young lady.” But he said “sympathy” for her should not be a factor in deliberations.

Instead, they should look at the law, which says if a person gives the keys of her car to a person with two guns, and a short time later he dies at the hands of a police officer while reaching for one of those guns, she has aided and abetted him in the conduct that got him killed.

In this case, it was her boyfriend of two years, Taemarr Walker, 24, of Warren, who died in an Oct. 19, 2013, confrontation with a Warren police officer after Walker disobeyed multiple commands from the officer and pulled a gun out from under the front seat of Jelks’ car.

“She doesn’t have to touch the guns. She didn’t have to put them in [the car], but she did everything else except put them in there,” Becker said. “She let [Walker] drive the car. She let him put the handguns in the car.”

In addition to involuntary manslaughter in Walker’s death, a felony punishable by up to 11 years in prison, she’s charged with improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle, which prohibited her or Walker from having firearms within their reach.

Read more about the closing arguments in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.