One of four adults alleged to be in the supporting cast for the late 2022 disappearances and deaths of two teenage boys pleaded guilty to undisclosed charges Wednesday morning in Lucas County Common Pleas Court.
As was the case with the previous plea in January of co-defendant Cruz Garcia, Corbin Gingrich, 27, of the 500 block of Maumee Avenue made a plea under seal April 25 before Judge Lori Olender.
And he entered it on the eve of jury selection for the trial of two other men charged with aggravated murder for the December 2022 kidnappings and deaths of Kyshawn Pittman, 15, and Ke’Marion Wilder, 16.
Like three others in the case, Gingrich was indicted last year for two counts apiece of murder and kidnapping, under the apparent theory that he participated in the Dec. 3, 2022 kidnappings that resulted in the boys’ deaths but was not directly involved in killing them.
Similarly charged were Gingrich’s wife, Carrissa Eames; her brother, Don Eames, Jr.; and Gabriel Garcia, who was indicted separately from and later than the case’s other defendants.
Gingrich and Carrissa Eames also were charged with obstructing justice, and Gingrich alone was charged with having weapons while under disability and trafficking in marijuana.
He is the second of seven adults charged with murder in the case to plead out.
Cruz Garcia, who was charged with two counts of aggravated murder along with murder and kidnapping, pleaded guilty Jan. 30 to information in a new, sealed indictment.
Gingrich entered his plea on the eve of jury selection before Judge Olender for the trial of two others charged with aggravated murder in the case, Charles Walker and Brent Kohlhofer.
Testimony and court filings during the case have painted a picture in which the boys were lured to the Eames/Gingrich residence on Maumee Avenue from a party at Maumee Bay State Park they were told to leave because at least one of them was armed.
They were bound and roughed up in the house’s basement before being turned over to Cruz Garcia, who allegedly drove them away, never to be seen alive again.
Walker and Kohlhofer are then alleged to be somehow responsible for the boys’ presence in the basement of a vacant house at 3015 Chase St. that burned during the wee hours of Dec. 5, 2022, the second morning after the boys’ disappearances.
Unaware of any person or bodies in the basement, a city crew razed the burned ruins, but police acting on investigative information visited the site 11 days after the fire and the boys’ bodies were recovered.
The Lucas County Coroner’s Office in late March released a ruling that young Wilder had died from strangulation and blunt head trauma. No ruling about the cause of young Pittman’s death has been released.
Cruz Garcia and Gabriel Garcia are not known to be related.
Cruz Garcia is scheduled for sentencing May 23, while Carrissa and Don Eames, Jr., both have court appearances scheduled that morning.
Gabriel Garcia currently has a June 10 trial date scheduled.
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