Defense wants to suppress ID evidence
Kettering teen accused in fatal shooting of student.
Evidence seized hours after a Fairmont High School student was shot is prejudicial against a 17-year-old Kettering defendant, the defense contends, saying it was obtained illegally without probable cause.
The defense team for Kylen Gregory — who is facing adult murder charges — wants to suppress photo identifications, phone records and other evidence taken in the hours after the Sept. 4, 2016, shooting of 16-year-old Ronnie Bowers, court documents show.
Shortly after the shooting, “no warrant or consent was obtained to search the defendant’s person or residence, rather the police officer performed an illegal search of the defendant’s person or residence to violate” the law, according to a motion filed Friday by attorney Jon Paul Rion.
Identifying Gregory as the suspect was “prejudicial in nature,” and “opinions of the police officers may have influenced the decision of these witnesses,” the document states.
Gregory appeared briefly Friday afternoon before Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Dennis Langer. He did not speak, and is scheduled to return to court Dec. 28.
Gregory is being tried as an adult in the shooting of Bowers on Willowdale Avenue shortly before 9 p.m. on Sunday of that Labor Day weekend, shortly after both teens separately left AlterFest.
Bowers died two days later of wounds from a gunshot to the head, and his death was ruled a homicide.
The defendant has been in custody since hours after the shooting. Gregory was indicted by a Montgomery County Common grand jury in August on two counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault with a deadly weapon and two related charges, court records show.
The indictment followed a series of juvenile court hearings, and winter and spring Ohio Supreme Court rulings that had impacted on how the case against him would move forward.
Charges of felonious assault charges were filed Sept. 6, 2016, against Gregory and two other males — one 16 and the other 14 – in connection with the Bowers shooting. Later that night, Bowers died.
Gregory was charged with murder in late October, when county Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. announced he would seek to try the then-16-year-old as an adult.
About a month later, the two other teens charged in the Bowers homicide pleaded guilty to lesser felony and misdemeanors. As part of a sealed plea deal, the two agreed to testify against Gregory.
They did so earlier this year, and both said Gregory fired a shot at Bowers’ car on the night of Sept. 4 as the Fairmont student attempted to flee from a confrontation between two groups on Willowdale.
The case against Gregory was transferred in July to adult court by county Juvenile Court Judge Anthony Capizzi.