Planned killing or moment of rage? Jurors deliberate fate of Bob Evans waitress killer

CANTON – Jurors were to return Friday to continue deliberating the fate of Richard Nelson, the East Canton man accused of gunning down his former girlfriend while she worked inside a restaurant.

Rebecca Rogers, 38, was killed at the Bob Evans located on Lesh Street and U.S. Route 62, on April 16 while she was worked as a waitress during breakfast hours.

The question isn't whether Nelson, 55, killed Rogers. He admitted doing so but his defense team argued he didn't plan the fatal shooting with prior calculation and design, a legal element of the aggravated murder charge he faces in Stark County Common Pleas Court.

The lesser charge of murder also being considered by the jury comes with a minimum sentence of 15 years to life in prison. The more serious aggravated murder charge comes with a life in prison without parole, or parole after 20, 25, or 30 years.

A conviction on the firearm specification would add three more years, according to Judge Frank Forchione.

Aggravated murder or murder?

During Thursday's closing arguments defense attorney Fernando Mack didn't deny his client killed Rogers, but asked jurors to decide whether Nelson's actions were planned out or if they transpired during a moment of rage.

Mack contends that Nelson was fueled with anger the day he entered the restaurant after discovering earlier that morning that Rogers was seeing someone else, a man who answered her phone at 7:30 a.m. telling him he needed to move on.

Mack told jurors that Nelson had called Rogers over 300 times over 48 hours because he was "on fire." He said Nelson believed Rogers had given him a sexually transmitted disease and was seeking answers, but Rogers kept ignoring his calls.

Stark County Chief Prosecutor Dennis Barr said the evidence points to aggravated murder, a calculated plan to kill Rogers.

Barr went over testimony stating Nelson showed up to the restaurant with a gun after driving back and forth looking for Rogers' car hours before going inside on the morning of the shooting.

In addition to what appeared to be stalking the place of her employment, Nelson parked in the back where no one could see him and removed his license plate. 

Barr held up a hoodie shown on the suspect entering the restaurant from the Bob Evans' surveillance video. It matches the hoodie Nelson was wearing when he was arrested.

"We were supposed to go down together," Nelson told his ex-wife in a recorded jail call.

The comment was in reference to Nelson's alleged plan to kill Rogers then himself, but his ex-wife later talked him out of killing himself.

"I'd still rather be dead than alive right now, and if it wasn't for that (expletive) phone call for the consideration for you, it would be done and over with," Nelson lamented to his former wife, Tammi Nelson, in a recorded call from jail.

Reach Cassandra cnist@gannett.com ; Twitter @Cassienist