Jury convicts gunman in Franklinton slaying

Kalawn Lammkin told jurors he just wanted to visit his then-1-year-old son in Franklinton, though he admitted to trading crack cocaine for a ride to get him there.

That visit on Aug. 2, 2016, ended with Lammkin killing 26-year-old Jamie Garrett of the South Side. Lammkin, now also 26, claimed self-defense.

A Franklin County jury skipped lunch and deliberated for almost eight hours Thursday before returning with a unanimous guilty verdict on murder, burglary and other charges. The jury found him not guilty of kidnapping his son when Lammkin took the boy when he fled the scene.

A lengthy 911 call and other evidence linked Lammkin to the slaying in a home in the 100 block of North Yale Avenue where his son was staying with his mother.

In the 911 call, Lammkin is heard entering the home and having a brief encounter with Isaiah Hogan, who screams, “Please don’t hit her. I’m begging you, please don’t hit her.”

Hogan, whose sister and Lammkin were parents of the boy, told jurors that Lammkin was enraged when he walked upstairs and saw Garrett, one of several people in the home.

Garrett is heard on the recording saying, “I don’t even know you,” right before Lammkin began shooting at him. Garrett was later pronounced dead at Mount Carmel West hospital.

Lammkin fled with his son and was later arrested in an East Side apartment. His son was with him and unharmed, police said.

At his sentencing May 9, Lammkin faces life without parole. Common Pleas Court Judge Jenifer French could add additional time because Lummkin is a repeat violenct offender. Six months before the shooting, Lammkin pleaded guilty to felonious assault for punching Hogan. He was sentenced to three years probation.

Diane Garrett, the mother of the murder victim, rejoiced at the jury’s verdict, stomping her feet and weeping.

“Elated, relieved,” she said afterward. “Justice has prevailed.”

Lammkin took the stand in his own defense at trial. Under questioning by his attorney, Robert Krapenc, Lammkin testified that he shot Garrett in self-defense after Garrett swung at him and pulled what he thought was a weapon out of a hip pocket.

“I believed that this is a gun,” Lammkin said. That’s when Lammkin said he fired four shots at Garrett.

“Isn’t it true that this is all just made up?” Joe Murnane, an assistant prosecutor, asked Lammkin on cross-examination.

Murnane said no gun was found and a long, woodhandled kitchen knife found by investigators in the cluttered room was “a huge knife that no one in their right mind would stick in their pocket.”

Mark Wodarcyk, another assistant prosecutor, told jurors that Lammkin “lives a dangerous life and God help anybody who crosses his path.”