Staff photo / Ed Runyan Lavontae Knight of Youngstown is shown during his aggravated murder trial this week in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

YOUNGSTOWN — A jury late Friday found Lavontae E. Knight guilty on all counts in the Dec. 30, 2018, killing of Trevice Harris and wounding of Quanisha Bosworth in a car on Youngstown’s South Side.

Knight, 26, of Ferndale Avenue, will be sentenced later. He will get a life prison sentence.

The weeklong trial took place in the courtroom of Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The jury found Knight guilty of the aggravated murder of Harris, the attempted murder of Bosworth, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, felonious assault and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

After the verdicts were rendered, Mike Yacovone, one of the three assistant prosecutors in the case, said âJustice was done today. The Youngstown Police Department did everything they needed to do. The Mahoning County Prosecutorás Office did everything they needed to do. A jury found him guilty based on the evidence, and we are extremely happy about that.ã

Knight is still facing another aggravated murder trial in the Oct. 25, 2018, killing of Josh Donatelli, 26, at Donatelli’s home on Imperial Street on the West Side — two months before the Harris killing. That case has no trial date.

Attorney David Betras, who represents Knight in both cases, has alleged that Dawn Cantalamessa, a former assistant county prosecutor, concealed evidence helpful to the defense in both murder cases.

When Betras asked Judge John Durkin to dismiss the charges against Knight in the Harris case in March, the judge refused. But when Betras complained to the judge in 2021 that Cantalamessa was withholding evidence in the Donatelli case, the judge removed Cantalamessa from the case, saying she showed a “careless indifference to ascertaining the truth” and made a false statement to the court.

Cantalamessa later left the prosecutor’s office and was hired in a similar role in Ashtabula County.

TESTIMONY

During the trial, Bosworth, 35, testified that she had seen her boyfriend, Harris, 37, talking to Knight, 26, at two funerals in the weeks before she was shot and Harris, was killed. She said she saw Knight “clearly,” and had also seen Knight at a barber shop and and at a house prior to the shootings.

And she identified Knight, who she knew as “Slim,” as the person who shot them when she called 911 that night and identified Knight as the person who shot them during her testimony Tuesday. She pointed to Knight in the courtroom.

The recording of her 911 call was played for the jury. It was difficult to hear most of what she said because of her emotional state, but when the call taker asked who shot her and her boyfriend, she said “Slim.”

“As you sit here today, is there any doubt in your mind that it was Slim?” Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer McLaughlin asked her of who shot them.

“No,” Bosworth said.

EXPERT

The defense team led by attorney David Betras hired an expert in witness identification to testify about what research shows about things that can affect a witness’s ability to identify a suspect in a crime.

Professor Margaret Bull Kovera testified Thursday that “memory is not necessarily a faithful record of what you have seen” and that stress can reduce a person’s ability to “store information” they have seen.

Betras has said he asked for permission from the court to hire Kovera at state expense because he knew Bosworth’s testimony was critical to the outcome of the case, saying that “without Bosworth’s statements, (Knight) cannot be associated with this case” because there was no other witness, the murder weapon was not found and Knight’s DNA “is not located” in the vehicles involved in the case.

WITNESS

Bosworth testified that the day of the murder, she heard Harris on the phone with Knight saying Harris was going to give Knight money for funeral expenses for three murdered people, including Knight’s half brother.

Harris left in one of her two cars, a Jaguar, to meet Knight, she said. Harris contacted her by phone and asked her to come to Ferndale Avenue on the South Side, she said.

She is from out of state and had some trouble finding the home, but a man and woman on the porch flagged her down. Knight was the male, she said. The male and female went in the house, and later Bosworth.

“We went into the kitchen and were held with guns,” she said of her and Harris. She did not know one of the males or the female but recognized Knight, who held a handgun and pointed it at her and Harris, she said. It was dark outside, but there were lights on in the house, she said.

The three people took phones and other valuables from her and Harris, she said. They put her and Harris in the Mercedes Benz with Knight in the back seat with Harris, she said.

She said Knight told her and Harris they would not be harmed. Then Knight got out of the car at Erie Street and Earle Avenue on the South Side. Then she said she heard gunshots and saw Knight leaning back toward the car. She thought she had been hit by gunfire but did not know if Harris had been hit, she said. She “played dead,” then jumped into the driver’s seat and drove off, she testified.

She later picked Knight out of a photo lineup as the man who shot her and Harris, she said.

erunyan@vindy.com