Man found guilty of killing ex-girlfriend
The murder victim’s body was found in the back of Darryl Joe Lee’s SUV. Deloris D. Williams’ sister testified that she watched Lee beat Williams until she was unconscious in his Near East Side apartment just hours before the body was discovered on April 10.
Although the autopsy determined that Williams died of suffocation, not the beating, there was little doubt about who was responsible.
On Thursday, a Franklin County jury took about an hour and 45 minutes to find Lee guilty of murder and tampering with evidence in the death of his 51-year-old ex-girlfriend.
He faces a mandatory term of life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years for the murder and as many as three years for the tampering conviction when he is sentenced by Common Pleas Judge William Woods on Dec. 15.
Woods also ruled that Lee, who has a 1995 conviction for involuntary manslaughter in Montgomery County, now qualifies as a repeat violent offender. The judge can add up to eight years to his sentence because of that finding.
Lee, 59, did not testify, but the jurors heard his interview with police, during which he admitted to the physical altercation with Williams and to putting her body, wrapped in carpeting, in the back of his SUV. He stopped short of admitting that he killed her.
Yalona Williams testified that she had been partying with her sister and Lee at his apartment in the 1800 block of Gault Street. She said Lee became enraged when her sister used a racial slur toward him as they argued after hours of drinking and smoking crack cocaine.
She said her sister grabbed a kitchen knife, which Lee pounded out of her hand before beating her repeatedly in the head with his fists and various objects, including a wireless speaker.
Yalona Williams said she left for work after Lee got her sister breathing through CPR, but that he wouldn’t let her take Deloris from the apartment. He later told her that her sister woke up and left.
Police, acting on a tip from a relative, discovered the body in the SUV.
Jurors found that Lee committed the murder both purposely and as a result of felonious assault.
Defense attorney Stephen Wolfe argued that it was unclear how the victim suffocated. Since his client used CPR on Deloris, he didn’t have a purpose to kill her, he told jurors.
Assistant Prosecutor Anthony Pierson said it was obvious who suffocated Deloris.
Based on a pathologist’s testimony that it takes four minutes for someone to suffocate, Pierson ran a digital clock on a courtroom screen during four minutes of silence in his closing argument.
“That’s four minutes of purpose,” he said.
NEWARK — A former Licking Valley kindergarten teacher has agreed to repay nearly $6,400 as part of a diversion program to avoid prosecution on charges that she stole money collected as part of an elementary school fundraiser.
Kristina Gossett, 40, of Newark, will have 12 months to make restitution and complete 80 hours of community service, said Assistant Delaware County Prosecutor Kyle Rohrer.
Her diversion program was approved in November in Licking County Common Pleas Court by retired Fairfield County Judge Chris Martin, with compliance handled by the Delaware County prosecutor’s office, where the case was transferred because Gossett’s husband is a probation officer in Licking County.
Gossett worked for the Licking Valley Local School District from August 2000 until mid-April. Detectives interviewed her and reviewed records this year when questions arose about the potential theft.
Gossett admitted taking money from September 2016 through March and later confessed to Superintendent David Hile that she used the funds “to pay her bills,” according to a letter written by Hile in April recommending that Gossett be fired.
Gossett submitted her resignation shortly after the inquiries, effective in mid-April. It was formally accepted by the school board in May.
She was indicted in late July on two counts of theft. As a first-time offender, she was eligible for the diversion program.