Who shot Tevael Parker? Did he take his own life? Did whomever was in a gray car seen by witnesses fire the bullet?
Attorney Walter Benson says the shooter wasn’t his client, Kerieda Beavers, Parker’s girlfriend who went on trial for his murder Monday.
Benson said police found no gunshot residue on Beavers’ hands or clothes nor her DNA on the gun that shot Parker in the early morning hours of Jan. 9 on a sidewalk in a high-crime area of Akron. He called this a “botched investigation.”
“Kerieda Beavers was scientifically excluded from committing this crime,” Benson said in his opening statement in Summit County Common Pleas Court. “At the end of this trial, I am firmly convinced we will all be asking ourselves why we were here in the first place.”
Assistant Prosecutor Angela Poth-Wypasek, however, claims Beavers turned from a witness to the primary suspect as Akron detectives investigated the shooting that happened about 1 a.m. Jan. 9 in the 1000 block of Weehawken Place.
“After you consider all of the evidence, you will find you are firmly convinced Beavers committed these offenses,” she said.
Beavers’ jury trial in Judge Scot Stevenson’s courtroom will resume Wednesday and is expected to last a week.
Beavers, 22, of Akron is charged with murder and felonious assault with firearms specifications. Prosecutors say Beavers shot Parker, 22, also of Akron, once in the head after they argued on the return trip to a corner store for beer. Parker was transported to the hospital where he later died.
Beavers also was taken to the hospital for injuries she suffered at the hands of one of Parker’s relatives, who assaulted her after seeing Parker had been shot.
Benson and Jeff Laybourne, Beavers’ attorneys, unsuccessfully sought to suppress statements Beavers made to police after the shooting. They argued Beavers was impaired by alcohol and narcotics administered to her in the hospital. She had a blood-alcohol level of 0.338, more than four times the 0.08 legal limit for driving in Ohio, according to court records.
Poth-Wypasek told jurors Monday that Beavers and Parker had been dating for nearly three years and had a volatile relationship in which they would often drink and argue. Prior to the shooting, she said they were drinking with friends when they decided to walk to a nearby store to get more beer before it closed.
On the return trip, Poth-Wypasek said, two people with Beavers and Parker had walked ahead of them and heard shots, but didn’t see what happened. Likewise, she said the people in a nearby house heard shots, and came out afterward, but didn’t see Parker get shot. A few people saw a gray car driving down the street.
The medical examiner’s office ruled Parker’s death a homicide and not a suicide, Poth-Wypasek said.
No gun shot residue was found on Beavers or her clothes and her DNA wasn’t on the revolver used in the shooting, which was discovered under Parker’s body, Poth-Wypasek said.
Benson questioned why police didn’t test Parker’s body for gunshot residue or blood-spattering to rule out suicide or try to find the occupants of the gray car. He said several factors compromised Beavers’ memory — the trauma of seeing Parker shot, the assault that left her with a concussion and the combination of alcohol and narcotic drugs.
Benson said detectives interrogated Beavers for three hours shortly after she left the hospital despite how she kept falling asleep and provided strange and inaccurate information. He said the detectives told Beavers they had physical evidence against her, but she continued to maintain her innocence. He said police mistook Beavers’ impaired state as a scheme to throw off the investigation and arrested her.
“Because of this botched investigation, you will never know if Parker took his own life or if the occupants of the gray car had anything to do with it,” Benson said.
Several of Beavers’ family members sitting in on her trial don’t think Beavers, who was studying to be a preschool teacher and has no prior criminal record, shot Parker.
“I don’t believe she had it in her heart,” said Lynn Williams, Beavers’ aunt.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705, swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com and on Twitter: @swarsmithabj .