During the evening hours of May 16, 2016, 23-year-old Earl Jones drove more than 20 minutes from Hamilton to Colerain Township, ostensibly to pick up his son from his ex-girlfriend, 21-year-old Cyerra Prather.
According to a police report, he pulled out a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson after a brief argument and shot 19-year-old Kevin Neri, Prather’s boyfriend at the time, in the front yard of the house Neri was living in with Prather. Jones fired multiple times, then climbed back in his white Honda, drove away and dialed 911.
“I have left the scene,” Jones says in the emergency call, claiming he had shot Neri in self-defense and indicating that those left at the house had already called an ambulance. “I’m on my way to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department to turn myself in.”
The tragic situation seems straightforward on its face: Neri was unarmed, his family says, and the shooting occurred in front of more than a dozen witnesses over the fact Neri was dating Jones’ ex-girlfriend.
But as the situation in court has slowly progressed, Neri’s family has grown concerned that Jones might end up with lesser charges than the aggravated murder count he was indicted on. The Neri family and their attorney, Michael Begovic, say Hamilton County prosecutors last month indicated that they were considering a plea deal for Jones, possibly offering him manslaughter charges in exchange for a guilty plea.The original aggravated murder charges carry a penalty of 15 years to life in prison. The manslaughter charges could mean as little as three years or up to 11 years in prison for Jones.
Complicating matters further, racial tension runs through the incident, at least according to the Neri family. Neri was black. Jones is white. Jones used racial language, including the word “nigger,” in text messages to his ex-girlfriend in which he indicates he doesn’t want the child the two had together raised by a black man. Jones also sent racially charged texts, also including the word “nigger,” to Neri during mutually heated exchanges between the two.
“I think the text messages speak for themselves,” says Begovic, the Neri family lawyer. “It’s pretty clear from the messages that Earl Jones was harboring racial animus toward Kevin Neri. I can’t speak to his motivation — obviously they were involved in a really contentious dispute — but I think anyone reading the messages would conclude that racial animus was part of it.”
Some controversy around the potential plea deal built in the days before an April 5 hearing in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. An April 2 rally organized with the help of Black Lives Matter Cincinnati drew more than 100 to the Hamilton County Courthouse to protest the possibility of a plea deal, and subsequent letters and calls to the prosecutor’s office urged Hamilton County Prosecutor Amy Trainter to rethink any plea deal that might be in the works. During the rally, Neri’s mother made an impassioned plea for justice for her son.
“Our son was a kind, loving, generous and intelligent young man who had a heart of gold,” Deneal Neri said. “This happened in broad daylight in front of several witnesses. Manslaughter is an accident. Unloading a gun on someone is murder. To the courts, Kevin doesn’t matter. He’s just another folder to push through their stack.”
The Hamilton County prosecutor’s office declined to comment on whether a plea deal was under consideration. The prosecutor’s office said it does not keep data about how many times it has offered plea deals in murder cases like Jones’, a spokesperson said.The prosecutor’s office shrugged off the possibility that the killing could lead to hate crime charges. Ohio law allows enhanced sentencing if a crime is determined to be motivated by race, religion, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation or disability. But hate crimes are hard to prove, and the designation is rarely applied in murder cases.
Begovic says he would like the texts between Neri and Jones and Prather and Jones on the record, leaving open at least the possibility of hate crime charges, however.Jones’ family and lawyers say there’s more to the story.
Bill Gallagher, one of Jones’ attorneys, wouldn’t discuss whether Jones will claim he acted in self-defense at trial, but says another side of the incident will come out in court and that the racial aspects of the case have been blown out of proportion.
“I’m troubled by the fact that Earl Jones, who has African-American family members, is being portrayed as a racist when he is absolutely not,” he says. Gallagher claims that Neri used the same particular charged racial term Jones used during text message exchanges.
“Do I think that someone who uses the N-word is necessarily racist if the word was just used to provoke a response? No. I understand the hurt and the anger the Neri family feels, but I think this incident is more about interpersonal relationships — an ex-girlfriend — than it is about race.”
Two witnesses at the scene of the shooting who happened to be nurses attempted to render medical aid to Neri, but he died later that night at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Jones was taken into custody after surrendering at the sheriff’s office. He was indicted May 20 on aggravated murder charges, pleaded not guilty and is being held on a $3 million bond at the Hamilton County Justice Center.
Documents from the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts list 15 witnesses to the shooting. Depositions collected by investigators from those witnesses are sealed, and none listed on the initial report from Colerain Township police returned calls asking for comment about the story.
The Neri family and Begovic say some eyewitness accounts tell a story that cast serious doubt on Jones’ initial self-defense claim. They say Neri had a defensive wound in his hand and was turning to run when he was shot.
Jones’ attorney Gallagher said earlier this month prosecutors hadn’t approached him about a plea deal. Originally, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Leslie Ghiz was set to sit in a hearing on the case April 5. But that hearing was rescheduled for May 8 to allow more time to investigate the killing. ©
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 3, 2017.