After two days of deliberations, a jury on Thursday found Brent Kohlhofer, 42, and Charles Walker, 34, guilty of the 2022 kidnapping and murder of Kyshawn Pittman, 15, and Ke’Marion Wilder, 16.
The two teens were last heard from on the evening of Dec. 3, 2022. Investigators recovered their bodies 12 days later in the rubble of a burned-out house at 3015 Chase St.
Kohlhofer, of Patriot Drive in Washington Township, and Walker, who lived in a house Kohlhofer owned in the 3000 block of Chase, were among 11 people charged for their roles in the boys’ deaths, including two juveniles initially charged with murder and kidnapping for their roles in the case.
Walker, Kohlhofer, and Cruz Garcia, 25, of the 1900 block of Greenwood Avenue, were charged with aggravated murder along with murder and kidnapping.
That distinction represented investigators’ belief that those three had direct hands in the boys’ deaths, while the others’ roles in the boys’ detention the evening they disappeared
Kohlhofer and Walker were each found guilty of one count of aggravated murder, two counts of murder, and two counts of kidnapping. They will be sentenced June 3 at 1 p.m.
The others charged with murder and kidnapping were Corbin Gingrich, 27, and Carrissa Eames, 24, both of the 500 block of Maumee Avenue; Don Eames, Jr., 22, of the 1100 block of Pinebrook Parkway; Gabriel Garcia, 24, of the 6200 block of Acres Road in Sylvania Township, and the juveniles: Brian Wilson, Jr., and Patrick Yingling, Jr.
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.
Also charged in the case were Crystal Laforge-Yingling and Diamond Rivera, both of whom were charged with obstruction of justice for lying to investigators about what they knew of others’ activities.
Their cases were among the first resolved. Both Laforge-Yingling, the mother of three others accused in the case, and Rivera, Cruz Garcia’s girlfriend, pleaded no contest last summer to the obstruction charges and were given three years’ probation.
The charges against Wilson and Yingling were resolved last year in Lucas County Juvenile Court, with Wilson, 14, admitting to delinquency for felonious assault and Yingling admitting to obstruction of justice.
Those two boys were friends of young Wilder, who had dated a niece of Gingrich, with whom young Wilder and young Pittman expected to smoke marijuana and play video games when they arrived at the Gingrich/Eames home.
Cruz Garcia pleaded guilty Jan. 30 to involuntary manslaughter in the case, while Gingrich pleaded guilty to an undisclosed charge May 1. Both plea agreements were sealed pending Garcia’s and Gingrich’s testimony in the trial of Walker and Kohlhofer.
Garcia is scheduled for sentencing May 23 and Gingrich is scheduled for sentencing June 13.
The Eamses’ next court appearance also is scheduled for May 23. Gabriel Garcia is currently scheduled for trial starting the afternoon of June 10.
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