Whether a Toledo man exited a car before the occupants fatally shot a 10-year-old girl and wounded her uncle on a central Toledo street, and whether that matters, was referred to a Lucas County jury Thursday evening.
No witness during eight days of trial testimony placed Dearryl Cornelious, 21, in the black Dodge Charger that on Feb. 12, 2024, pulled alongside a black Mercedes-Benz SUV on Collingwood Boulevard. No one directly linked him to either of the guns from which investigators determined 14 shots were fired at the SUV, wounding driver Kenneth White, 24, and killing his niece, 10-year-old Da’Mia Ezell.
But prosecutors argued Thursday in summation that tracking of a cell phone belonging to Cornelious and GPS records for the shooters’ vehicle placed him in that Charger as it traveled past the crime scene.
They challenged as unreliable the testimony Wednesday of Byron Cleveland — Cornelious’ co-defendant in the case, his cousin, and the only witness defense lawyer Phil Carlisle put on the Lucas County Common Pleas Court witness stand — that Cornelious got out of the car in a parking lot near the Woodruff Village Apartments before it then chased Mr. White’s SUV.