Opening statements were held Tuesday in Davis’ aggravated murder trial in Butler County Common Pleas Judge Kelly Heile’s courtroom in Hamilton.
Davis is one of two men charged with the 35-year-old’s death last June at a house on Yankee Road. Slone was reported missing and her remains were found in a trash can by searchers on July 1. He is the first to go to trial and co-defendant, Perry Hart, is expected to take the stand to testify against him.
In addition to aggravated murder, Davis, 45, is charged with having weapons under disability, kidnapping and lesser included charges of murder, kidnapping, murder, attempted murder.
Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser told the jury Slone had a drug addiction, lived in a crime-riddled neighborhood and associated with people who had the same life style. One of those people was Davis, who frequented the Yankee Road house or lived nearby in “a wooded homeless area he considered his own.”
Davis spent time in the woods collecting rocks and using chemicals to clean them, according on prosecutors. Investigators detected a smell of decomposition in the area that was Davis’ “domain,” Gmoser told the jury.
Slone’s cell phone was last used on June 7. That is the night prosecutors believe she was killed.
Gmoser said Davis arrived at the door on that day and was let in by one of two other women. Slone was asleep on floor in the front room.
“This defendant took out a pistol, an unusual looking one, and fired a bullet into her head,” Gmoser said. Hart was startled by the shot. ”This defendant looked at him with gun in hand and said ‘are you with me or are you not?”
Slone was not dead. She was moaning and agonizing.
Gmoser said that is when Davis told Hart to “take her downstairs and shut her up. Stop her from moaning.”
Hart did, shooting the woman again in the head with the same pistol described as having a blue covering and no clip, Gmoser said.
Slone was not heard from again and all the people in the house scattered, including Hart and Davis.
Loved ones reported Slone missing but it took weeks before her badly decomposed body was found and longer for a positive identification.
A woman looking for any sign of Sloan noticed a trash can she had not seen before and looked in.
“She opened the lid and a multitude of insect, flies came out of that container and the smell of death was there and the body was there, ” Gmoser said. The woman’s soft tissue was “almost completely disintegrated.”
Before and after Slone’s body was found, Middletown police detectives interviewed people she associated with, including Davis and Hart, twice. In a second interview, Hart accompanied them to the police station and told them he had shot her at the direction of Davis. The gun was in his back pack, Gmoser said.
During that interview with police, Davis told then about a “colorful” gun that was used to shoot her - making sure the evidence pointed to Hart, Gmoser said.
Gmoser said sometimes you have to make a “deal with the devil” stating Hart will have his charge reduced from aggravate murder to involuntary manslaughter. But Gmoser said when he told police about the shooting, he was not under arrest and did not ask for anything.
Defense attorney Brad Kraemer sarcastically referred to Hart, who has a lengthy criminal past, as a “great humanitarian and didn’t ask for anything in his discussion with police, but yet a deal with the devil was made. Perry Hart went from aggravated murder to manslaughter. That’s a big jump.”
Kraemer said the guy (Hart) who was allegedly “bullied” into murder is the only one whose DNA was found on the gun”
“He (Hart) was saving his behind,” Kraemer said.
Davis’ DNA also was not found in blood evidence taken from the house, the defense attorney told the jury.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
The trial is expected to continue through Friday.
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