MANSFIELD — Eight women and five men were seated at the jury box Tuesday in a Richland County Common Pleas Courtroom for the murder trial of Christen Ramirez and Marcelluis Luckie.
Luckie, 42, is charged with two counts of aggravated murder, four counts of kidnapping, one count of aggravated burglary and one count of robbery — all with firearm specifications. He also faces a tampering with evidence charge and a charge of having a weapon under disability.
Ramirez, 36, faces the same charges.
The trial stems from an incident on June 26, 2015 at 222 East First Street in Mansfield that left Myron Webb, 38, dead from multiple stab wounds.
Opening statements
Richland County Common Pleas Court Judge Brent Robinson upheld the prosecutors’ motion to allow Myron Webb’s girlfriend, Shamille Chatman, to hear all the testimony involved in the case.
Defense attorneys Rolf Whitney, representing Luckie, and Bernie Davis, representing Ramirez, argued Chatman’s presence would influence her testimony.
In her opening statement, Richland County Prosecutor Bambi Couch Page described the events leading up to the death.
“The story really begins two nights before,” she noted.
Couch Page described a home invasion at 245 Greenlawn Ave. in Mansfield on June 24, 2015 when a hooded man woke Uvon Burns from a deep sleep.
“The man was loud, he was holding a gun and waving it around and yelling at her: ‘Where the money? Where the drugs?’ ” Couch Page said.
The incident ended with the hooded man fleeing after he learns that Jason O’Neal, Burns’ boyfriend, has witnessed the man shooting their dog and demanding money and drugs, the prosecutor said.
Couch Page argued the evidence will show that Luckie was the hooded man with a gun who shot Burns’ and O’Neal’s dog.
Like the incident which allegedly happened two nights prior, Shamille Chatman awoke to a man demanding money and drugs.
“Shamille is woken by someone standing over her with a gun. The person is a black man, wearing a hoodie and a mask along with sunglasses and he’s demanding bricks and money,” Couch Page said.
Couch Page added that Chatman said the hooded man was accompanied by another man, who is described as shorter with lighter complexion and wearing a hoodie and a mask. When the duo failed to get drugs and the amount of money that pleased them, Couch Page said the man with lighter complexion ransacked the home and tied up Chatman’s son.
The two also demanded Chatman to lure her boyfriend, Webb, home. Minutes later, she said, he gets home and is confronted by the two hooded intruders.
“As they (Luckie and Ramirez) are trying to organize their thoughts and trying to figure out where they go from here, Parnell (Myron) bum-rushes them both, takes them both to the ground — the fight is on,” Couch Page said.
The scuffle has a bloody finish, she said.
The two men flee the home on East First Street and jump in a black Pontiac. Days later, the car is found and searched by Mansfield Police detectives.
Whitney pleaded with the jurors to wait until they have heard all the evidence before jumping to any conclusions. Davis, representing Ramirez, said the prosecutor’s case will contain mistakes and conflicting statements.
“What you will hear and see is a body of evidence that is rife with mistakes, contradictions, assumptions and innuendo,” Davis said, adding that a lot of what the jury will hear is what witnesses heard on the streets.
“… not from what they actually saw occur,” he said. “In the end you won’t be satisfied by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Christen Ramirez committed these crimes.”
The trial is expected to continue Thursday morning when the prosecuting attorneys will call their first witness.