CLEVELAND, Ohio — Jury selection began Wednesday in the murder conspiracy trial of the brother of convicted Warresnville Heights barbershop shooter Douglas Shine Jr.
Kevin McKinney, 31, is charged with conspiring to kill a witness who identified Douglas Shine Jr. as the gunman who killed three people inside Chalk Linez Barbershop Feb. 5, 2015.
Common Pleas Judge Steve Gall will preside over the trial.
Prosecutors say Shine and McKinney hatched a plot to kill Aaron “Pudge” Ladson, used court records to find Ladson’s real name and address, and hired Lawrence Kennedy to carry out the shooting to prevent Ladson from testifying against Shine.
Ladson was gunned down in his driveway on June 4, 2015, as he was leaving to go to a pretrial hearing on unrelated drug charges.
Kennedy was found shot dead two days later in an alleyway off Corlett Avenue.
Investigators never recovered the gun used in Ladson’s killing. Instead, their case is largely based on text messages and tower data recovered from a cellphone found next to Kennedy’s body and recorded jail calls between Shine and McKinney.
Shine was sentenced to life in prison in December after he was convicted of a string of shootings including the killing of William Gonzalez, Walter Barfield and Brandon White inside the barbershop shootings and conspiring to kill Ladson, who was White’s brother.
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