McDonald

McDonald

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<p>State Police search a section of Solomon’s Creek near the Oxford Street bridge on Oct. 2, 2018.</p>
                                 <p>Times Leader file photo</p>

State Police search a section of Solomon’s Creek near the Oxford Street bridge on Oct. 2, 2018.

Times Leader file photo

WILKES-BARRE — Autopsy photographs displaying gunshot wounds on the body of Tierese Owens were shown to the Luzerne County jury presiding over the homicide trial of Kyon McDonald on the third day of proceedings Wednesday.

Dr. Michael A. Yoder, a pathologist at Pathologist Associates of Northeastern Pennsylvania in Dunmore, described each wound, including a rare bullet that entered his body just below his right pectoral muscle and exited just left and below his navel.

Yoder said he recovered five bullets, including two fragments, during the autopsy.

A bloodstained white T-shirt was also shown to jurors, which McDonald’s co-defense lawyer Barry H. Dyller strongly objected to being on display.

Yoder further told jurors a toxicology report showed Owens had a blood alcohol level of .105% and had compounds of marijuana in his system.

Yoder said Owens died from multiple gunshot wounds and the manner of death was homicide.

With the jury in the courtroom, Dyller conceded McDonald killed Owens, but the reasons why are being debated.

Dyller and co-defense lawyers Theron J. Solomon and Tara G. Giarratano believe McDonald killed Owens in self-defense, while assistant district attorneys Drew McLaughlin and Susan Luckenbill are attempting to convince the jury the fatal shooting was intentional.

McLaughlin and Luckenbill said Owens was shot seven times, at which, the last six shots were fired at point blank range.

Video recordings taken from inside and outside Robbie Nick’s Sports Bar at Main Street and Washington Avenue in Plymouth where Owens was killed on Sept. 27, 2018, were shown to jurors by prosecutors throughout the first three days of trial before Judge David W. Lupas.

Footage shows Owens, Luis Cruz and Tazelle Curtis inside the bar while McDonald, his wife Kimberly McKenna and others were playing pool.

Bartender Shelby Zimmerman testified Wednesday that she had Owens and Curtis removed because they were being obnoxious. When Zimmerman called the bar’s owner, Robert Nicoletti, she said Nicoletti permitted the two men to stay inside.

When Zimmerman closed the bar at 2 a.m. on Sept. 27, 2018, there was some type of fight outside while McDonald, his wife and three others remained outside.

McDonald was handed a Taurus 9mm handgun by the bar’s bouncer, Kevin Johnson, minutes before he exited the bar.

Outside, Owens and McDonald were face-to-face as Nicoletti is seen in footage pushing and shoving Owens away.

Nicoletti testified earlier in the week Owens was yelling, “I’m a Crip, I’ll (expletive) kill you,” at McDonald.

Owens is out of view for more than two minutes until he is recorded running back at the bar getting shot by McDonald.

Earlier Wednesday, McLaughlin and Luckenbill showed jurors a 30 minute recording of an interview McDonald gave with state police criminal investigators Lisa Brogan and Edward Urban.

Urban testified McDonald was read his Miranda warnings and agreed to the interview without an attorney.

McDonald told Brogan and Urban that Owens was inside the bar being obnoxious, disrupted his pool game and touched his wife.

He tells Brogan and Urban, “He (Owens) made me fear for my life,” despite not seeing Owens with any type of weapon.

Brogan asked McDonald what he did with the handgun used to kill Owens.

McDonald explained he tossed the clip and handgun in the area of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Oxford Street in Hanover Township after the shooting.

Urban said the area including Solomon Creek was searched twice as the weapon was never found.

McDonald was apprehended after a several-hour standoff with the state police Special Emergency Response Team at 5 N. Walnut St. in Wilkes-Barre Township on Sept. 29, 2018.

Testimony continues today.