After a full day of jury selection Thursday, the aggravated murder trial of Brent A. Kohlhofer, 42, and Charles C. Walker, 34, who are accused of kidnapping and murdering two teenage boys in late 2022, started Friday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court.
The bodies of Kyshawn Pittman, 15, and Ke’Marion Wilder, 16, were found in the ruins of a burnt-out home at 3015 Chase St. on Dec. 16, 2022, 11 days after the house burned, and 13 days after they were reported missing.
While more than half a dozen people were initially charged for their roles in the boys’ disappearance, only Walker and Kohlhofer are on trial.
In January, Cruz Garcia, 25, pled guilty to two counts apiece of involuntary manslaughter and kidnapping. Corbin Gingrich, 27, made a plea under seal before Judge Lori Olender on April 25. Both men are expected to be key witnesses against Walker and Kohlhofer.
“All of the players in this game had motive,” Katie Tauber, senior assistant Lucas County prosecutor, said. But the boys were killed because Walker and Kohlhofer “felt they had wronged them by stealing from them, and nobody steals from them.”
According to Ms. Tauber, Walker and Kohlhofer thought one or both of the boys had burglarized their homes in November, 2022.
In her opening remarks to the jury, Ms. Tauber painted a picture of a violent chain of events that included kidnapping, beatings, strangulation, and the subsequent burning of a vacant north Toledo home to dispose of the bodies.
According to Ms. Tauber, the teens were attending a birthday party at Maumee Bay State Park on the night they disappeared. The mother of the birthday girl kicked them out after hearing one of the boys had flashed a gun.
Walker and Kohlhofer were “business associates” of Garcia and Gingrich, in the business of selling marijuana, Ms. Tauber said.
The Uber that picked up the boys from Maumee Bay that night was ordered by Gingrich, Ms. Tauber said, and it delivered them to his home on Maumee Street. They went down to the basement to play video games, but instead were beaten and bound.
A photo of the boys tied up with an HDMI cord in the basement of 507 Maumee St. was sent to Kohlhofer, Ms. Tauber said.
“They were alive,” when the photo was taken, she said. “Everyone had a hand to play in what led to the murders. It doesn’t absolve [Walker’s and Kohlhofer’s] involvement.”
Walker and Kohlhofer came to the Maumee Street home, bound the boys with duct tape, and punched them in their faces.
“They walked them to the alley and loaded them into Walker’s black Chevy Impala. It drove off, and the boys were never seen alive again,” Ms. Tauber said. “They worked together to extract their revenge.”
The boys were taken to a house at 3015 Chase St., she said. A witness later saw someone setting the house on fire.
According to the deputy fire chief who responded to the house fire in the early morning hours of Dec. 5, 2022, the fire was the most intense in the rear of the house, Ms. Tauber said. Fire crews were unable to search all the house, and never got to the basement.
According to Ms. Tauber, neither boy had soot or thermal burns in their airways, meaning they were murdered before they were burned.
“We’re going to point the finger at Garcia and Gingrich,” said Justin Weatherly, an attorney for Kohlhofer. “Yeah, because they killed the kids, and that is what the evidence is going to show.”
“Those are the two that lured them, those are the two that bound them, those are the two that beat them,” Mr. Weatherly said.
He then put up a chart of 12 people he said were suspected of playing a role in the teens’ deaths, making a point to count the number of people on the screen for the jury. He argued his client is only connected to Garcia.
Kohlhofer “is not an angel. He sells weed,” Mr. Weatherly said, and Garcia sells to Gingrich.
According to Mr. Weatherly his client didn’t know Wilder, but Pittman was friends with Kohlhofer’s nephew, and even painted houses for Kohlhofer and helped Kohlhofer with his bouncy house business.
Mr. Weatherly tried to draw a connection between Pittman and Gingrich and Garcia.
“They get kicked out of the birthday party because someone flashed a gun. Corbin Gingrich was missing a gun. [Pittman] was dating Gingrich’s niece. Gingrich assumes the gun that was flashed was his, and that [Pittman] stole it,” Mr. Weatherly said. “Cruz Garcia’s mom’s house was robbed, and someone held a gun to her head.”
He then offered an alternative version of what happened in the basement at 507 Maumee, with both teens pulling guns when confronted by Gingrich about the burglaries.
“Gingrich bum-rushed them,” taking the guns away from the boys and pistol-whipping them, he said. Gingrich then calls Garcia, and when Garcia shows up, “that’s when things got really serious.”
Mr. Weatherly argued Kohlhofer never believed Pittman had burglarized his house while he was in Florida.
“He knew it was his nephew, Memphis,” he said. “If [Kohlhofer] wanted to get his hands on Pittman, he didn’t need any help. He was always on Chase Street” where Kohlhofer owns a number of houses.
“Pay attention to the evidence. It will show he is a drug dealer, marijuana only,” Mr. Weatherly said. “There is no evidence of the violent gun-toting danger” of a drug dealer. “He makes a decent amount of money, and it is fairly low risk.”
Autumn Adams, an attorney for Walker, furthered Mr. Weatherly’s argument.
“Cruz was mad as hell about what happened to his mom,” she said. If Walker and Kohlhofer “run the show, why did [Gingrich] call [Garcia] to tell him ‘I’ve got the boys.’”
Gingrich deleted 1,239 items from his phone in the days following the boys disappearance, Ms. Adams said, and Garcia deleted multiple messages from his phone.
“Not a single thing was deleted from either [Walker] or [Kohlhofer]’s phones,” she said. “Their phones were not turned off, but everyone else’s was.”
Initial witnesses Friday afternoon included Phenique Lipkins, 37, the mother of the girl whose birthday was being celebrated at Maumee Bay State Park on Dec. 3. She recounted telling them to leave and driving them from the cabin she was renting to the lodge, where they waited for a ride.
The Uber driver that picked the boys up that night, Isabella Johnson, 27, testified she drove them to the home on Maumee Street, arriving sometime around 8:30 p.m. She said she stopped driving for Uber after learning what happened to the teens.
Pittman’s mother, Kenyotta Reynolds, 37, broke down on the stand when shown a picture of her son. She recalled the last time she saw him was on her home video system on Friday, Dec. 2, as he left the family’s home for school. Ms. Reynolds was at work and would monitor his coming and going at home via the security system.
She testified the pair were “real close,” and despite her son being “very social with lots of friends,” he would always keep in touch with her when he was out of the house. She said it was not unusual for him not to be home when she got home from work, and “he would usually hang out with friends on the weekends.”
Her last contact with her son was the night of Dec. 3, when he asked for a ride. She tried to connect with him later but was unsuccessful.
It wasn’t until Monday, Dec. 5, when she was watching the home security cameras again to see if he left for school, that she started to worry.
“I made a Facebook post asking if anyone had seen him. It got shared 400 to 500 times within 5 minutes,” she said. “I was concerned since Saturday, when he didn’t respond anymore.”
When she connected with Wilder’s father, Christopher, and learned he was missing too, the pair contacted Toledo Police about their boys.
Ms. Reynolds said her son did have a nice relationship with Kohlhofer, doing various property maintenance jobs for him for money, but it had soured about a month prior to Pittman’s death.
She testified her son had come home in late October or early November and told her “we needed to move, because [Kohlhofer] was threatening to burn our house down because he thought we broke into his house.”
The trial continues Monday.
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