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LISBON -- Jurors, the victim's family and friends and all present in the Columbiana County Common Pleas courtroom Wednesday heard multiple bangs and what was believed to be Dion McMillon's last breaths of life.
That recording of a jail phone call between McMillon, 26, of East Liverpool, and an inmate at the county jail on May 19, 2021 was one of many pieces of evidence introduced in the aggravated murder trial of Tyrell Travers, the Wellsville man accused of shooting McMillon to death that night in East Liverpool's east end.
Travers was indicted in January 2022 for aggravated murder and murder, both unclassified felonies with a firearms specification, and tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony. The jury trial started Tuesday with jury selection and a bus trip for jurors to East Liverpool to visit locations pertinent to the case, including Mapletree Street where the shooting occurred.
The recorded phone call was played during testimony of Sgt. Harley Malone of the Columbiana County Sheriff's Office, who oversees the phone records of the inmates, among other duties.
Defense attorney Walter Madison objected and requested a sidebar discussion with Judge Megan Bickerton, county Chief Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Weikart and county Assistant Prosecutors Steve Yacovone and Tammie Riley Jones, who was questioning the witness at the time. The judge allowed the phone call recording to be played.
On the recording, the two men can be heard talking then what sounded like gunfire can be heard and one of the men can be heard asking, "what was that noise." In the courtroom, the sound of crying could be heard from the victim's supporters.
During opening arguments, Weikart noted that McMillon was talking on his cell phone and parked in his black Mercedes the night of May 19, 2021 when he was interrupted by a hail of gunfire that hit the passenger side of his car. According to Weikart, the defendant unloaded 13 shots into the front passenger side window.
"Dion McMillon would have never seen it coming," he said.
During his cross examination of Malone regarding the phone recording, Madison referred to the jail inmate on the phone call and said "but he can't tell us who shot him can he?" From the jail call, Madison said it's known that McMillon was shot, but "as it relates to who shot him, this has no value."
Weikart laid out the case for jurors in his opening statement, how he said the defendant laid in wait until he knew the victim was alone. A white Kia Soul could be seen on a nearby camera slowly entering the area with the lights off, the vehicle was parked and then someone got out of the vehicle, then a little later, someone could be seen getting back inside the vehicle, quickly driving in reverse into a parking lot and then pulling out, speeding away.
Weikart said the investigators followed the evidence and "that evidence led back to one place, this defendant."
He said Travers said he didn't know McMillon, only knew of him, but that wasn't true. He said he was in Struthers all day, that wasn't true because his cell phone put him all over East Liverpool. He denied ever having a white Kia Soul, but that wasn't true. He was seen driving the vehicle and had returned it to Hertz Rental the day after the shooting.
"The excessive number of shots themselves show that this was a calculated act," Weikart said.
In his opening statement, Madison said "Tyrell Travers did not kill Dion McMillon."
He said the state won't be able to prove it and won't meet their burden. He talked about the jury's duty and told them to "pay attention to what you hear in this case and pay attention to what you don't hear."
Besides Malone, witnesses who took the stand included: Sheriff's Office Detective Jesse Smith, who was working as a patrolman with the East Liverpool Police Department at the time of the shooting and responded to the scene; Mapletree Street resident Douglas Douglas, who was a friend of Dion's and knew him by the nickname "Action," heard the gunshots and came out, finding the vehicle shot up; Mulberry Street resident Marc Douglas, who also knew "Action," heard the gunfire and responded to check on his cousin, Douglas Douglas, and felt no pulse when checking on "Action" in his vehicle; Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Ed Lulla who testified about the evidence collected by Agent Ashley Ornelas; BCI forensic scientist Sara Horst, an expert in DNA analysis, who found insufficient data for comparison with the DNA standards they had for Travers and McMillon on items sent for testing, including the bullet casings; forensic pathologist Dr. Dan Galita of the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office, who performed the autopsy; and Savannah Curnett, who resides in Struthers and saw Travers and his girlfriend, Alexis, the night of the shooting when they showed up at her residence.
Curnett said Alexis had been staying with her and she was familiar with Travers and knew he had a small, black gun that he kept in his waistband. She didn't permit him at her residence and understood that Alexis, also called Lexie, wasn't coming home that night because she planned to stay with Travers at his mother's Wellsville home. She said Lexie texted her that she was coming to her house and both she and Travers showed up. She described both as quiet and said Travers was pacing. She said he had a Walmart bag and was wiping his gun down with his shirt, then asked her to burn the bag in her fire pit. She denied the request and they left. She suspected something bad had happened and a friend texted her the next morning about McMillon. A search warrant was executed at her house and she told Alexis the next day to move out, which she did. She was asked by Madison if that was unusual for Travers to have a gun and she said no.
Galita testified about all the gunshot and shrapnel wounds to the victim's body and noted that his cause of death was gunshot wounds to the right upper and lower extremities. He said he recovered nine bullets from the body.
"Who shot him?" Madison asked during cross-examination. "I don't know," the doctor replied.
Lulla testified that the casings found at the scene came from a .40-caliber weapon, but noted that there was no weapon in the evidence in front of him.
Both Marc Douglas and Douglas Douglas heard the shots and Marc Douglas said he saw a white car speeding on First Avenue in front of him, a Kia Soul, as he was walking toward his cousin's house on Mapletree Street. Both he and Douglas Douglas saw the brake lights activated on McMillon's vehicle.
Smith reviewed crime scene photographs and a map of the area and also talked about how he took video on his phone of a video a resident had that showed the white Kia Soul arriving and leaving. He said there was a big hole in the passenger side window of McMillon's car with smaller holes around it. He testified that the department was informed that Wellsville Police saw Travers driving the white Kia Soul the morning of May 19, 2021.
Testimony was expected to continue today.
mgreier@mojonews.com