CLEVELAND, Ohio — A prosecutor and a defense lawyer on Friday each called the case against a man accused in a conspiracy that resulted in the death of a key witness in a triple murder at a Warrensville Heights barbershop an “attack on the criminal justice system.”
But each claimed it was an attack for very different reasons.
Kevin “Buffy” McKinney, 31, is accused of plotting the death of Aaron “Pudge” Ladson who was a state witness in the 2015 gang-related triple murder at the Chalk Linez barbershop.
Assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor Andy Santoli in opening statements said that McKinney helped hatch a plot, along with his younger brother Douglas Shine Jr., to hire a third man to kill Ladson to prevent him from testifying against Shine at trial.
“What this case is about is an attack on our criminal justice system,” Santoli told the jurors. “It’s about an attack on our constitution, and our community, to conspire to execute and eliminate a state’s witness.”
Shine was eventually sentenced to life in prison in December after he was convicted of a string of shootings including the Feb. 5, 2015 killing of William Gonzalez, Walter Barfield and Brandon White. Shine was also convicted of conspiracy to kill Ladson, who was White’s brother.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Saffold characterized the state’s case as weak and relies solely on circumstantial evidence. He noted that investigators never found the gun used in Ladson’s death, or any physical evidence like fingerprints or DNA that tied McKinney to Ladson’s death.
“This is a murder, and it’s still unsolved,” Ladson said. “That’s the real attack on justice.”
Prosecutors are expected to rely on a great deal of evidence from Shine’s trial to lay the foundation for the conspiracy charge against McKinney.
Ladson was in a car outside the barbershop when he told police that he watched Shine leave the shop with pistols. He later told investigators that Shine stopped at the car and told him “I spared your life.” Shine threatened him in phone calls later that night, police said.
Shine and McKinney came to believe that he was the only witness that the prosecution had, Santoli said.
McKinney ran into Ladson at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center several weeks after Shine’s arrret and called him a “snitch,” Santoli said.
A series of recorded phone calls between Shine in the Cuyahoga County Jail and McKinney show that the two men discussed how to find Ladson’s name and address in court records. They used a burner phone to text Ladson’s address to Lawrence Kennedy, and McKinney received a text message from Kennedy minutes after Ladson was killed that said “checkmate,” Santoli said.
Santoli said phone records, including data gleaned from cellphone towers, will show that the burner phone and McKinney’s phone were near the same location in the weeks leading up to Ladson’s death.
Saffold sought to separate McKinney, whose nickname was Buffy, from his younger brother Shine, saying that McKinney moved out of the home when Shine was 6 or 7 years old, before Shine’s stints in youth prisons began.
When McKinney found out Shine was accused of killing three people inside the barbershop, he couldn’t believe it, Saffold said. He “didn’t give up” on Shine and continued to talk to him in jail, Saffold said. Then, police and prosecutors began listening to their conversations.
“Maybe the mistake Buffy made was he continued to maintain a relationship with Duke,” Saffold said, referring to McKinney and Shine by their nicknames.
Prosecutors are asking jurors to “lower the standard” of convicting a man of murder by not presenting physical evidence, Saffold said.
To comment on this story, please visit Friday’s crime and courts comments page.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
