Staff photo / Ed Runyan Brad Gessner, one of two special prosecutors in the Akeem Hargrove aggravated murder case, questions Arelis Jankovich during Hargrove’s aggravated murder trial Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. She is Hargrove’s ex-girlfriend.

YOUNGSTOWN — The ex-girlfriend of Akeem Hargrove testified in Hargrove’s aggravated murder trial Wednesday, answering lots of questions from Hargrove’s attorney intended to cast doubt on her claims that Hargrove admitted to her that he committed the murder of Devin Bell on Dec. 22, 2022.

Wednesday was the second day of testimony in Hargrove’s trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. It resumes this morning. Bell was shot to death at the Shell gas station on South Avenue.

Among the people who also testified Wednesday was Youngstown police officer William Burton, now a detective sergeant, who said the woman, Arelis Jankovich, called him early Dec. 22, while he was on duty as a patrolman and told him she was upset that Hargrove had taken her car. They agreed that she would wait to see if he returned it in the morning.

After Burton was done working his midnight shift and was at home asleep, Jankovich, who was a friend of Burton’s, called Burton again, he testified.

“When she called, she was absolutely hysterical,” Burton said. “She blurted out that her boyfriend killed somebody and used her car,” Burton said. “She was scared. She had her kids with her, she didn’t know what to do.”

Burton contacted his supervisor and told him. Youngstown police officers escorted Jankovich from her home, and she was taken to the Youngstown Police Department, Burton said. Burton “stayed in the background” as detectives interviewed her.

After Jankovich left the police station, she was taken back to her house, where detectives and crime scene investigators investigated.

“I just kind of hung out in the background again,” he said. “I didn’t take part in that investigation at all.”

Brad Gessner, who is chief counsel for the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office and one of two special prosecutors handling the case, asked Burton: “At any point in this case, were you involved as a Youngstown police officer?”

“No,” Burton said.

“So your activities were as a friend of Arelis?” Gessner asked.

“Yes,” Burton said.

One of the first things defense attorney Stanley Booker asked Jankovich about during his cross-examination of her was her relationship with Burton. She said they were never in a romantic relationship, but they were friends. He gave her money sometimes on a cellphone app more than 20 times, but she always paid him back, she said.

Booker asked if Bell called her within days of his death, and she said he called her a couple of days beforehand, but he was “talking nonsense.” She agreed that she was “offended” by things he said.

She agreed that she picked up Hargrove at Hargrove’s house on Youngstown’s West Side at about 8 p.m. Dec. 21. Booker spent a lot of time questioning her on why she referred during her testimony Tuesday to the second man at her house late Dec. 22 before the homicide as “they.” She agreed that she referred to the second man as “they.”

Booker recalled that she testified that the second man had a mask on his face that covered all but his eyes. She said she never saw any other part of his face that night except his eyes.

She agreed that she testified that Hargrove asked her multiple times to let him use her red Jeep, but she said no.

Booker asked if the second male came back at the same time as Hargrove early Dec. 22, 2022, after the first time they were there.

Jankovich said yes because he had to get his car, a Ford Escape. She thinks he came into the house.

He asked what they were wearing, but Jankovich said she thinks they were wearing different clothes than the first time, but, “It’s been a long time.”

Gessner objected the next time Booker tried to refer to the second man as “the they people.” Judge Anthony D’Apolito, who is presiding over the trial, asked Booker to be more specific of who he is referring to instead of saying “they.”

Booker persisted, asking, “The people who came in that green Escape, did they bring you any cellphones?”

“The person did not bring me any cellphones,” she said.

Booker asked if she had two “brand new cellphones” on the counter in her home in a photo Youngstown police took at her house Dec. 22, 2022, while investigating the homicide.

“They’re not brand new, but yes those are the boxes they were in,” she said.

“You just happened to have two brand new boxes on your counter that you bought months prior, you just happened to have those two brand new boxes for iPhones on your counter?” Booker asked.

“Your point?” she asked. Booker did not respond.

“You said my client broke your phone and your daughter’s phone, correct?” he asked.

“That’s what he said, yes,” Jankovich said of Hargrove.

Booker wanted to know why Jankovich’s phone was used to make calls up until noon Dec. 22, 2022, hours after the homicide.

“I didn’t have the phone. How could I use it?” she replied.

Two forensic scientists from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation testified that they tested fingerprints and DNA from guns, a knife and a car that police believe were involved in the killing. None of the fingerprints had sufficient detail to identify anyone, one agent testified.

Another agent testified that none of the DNA tested was a match for Hargrove, though one gun tested positive for the DNA of Zachary Bair, a co-defendant of Hargrove, whose case is still pending in common pleas court.

Bair “confessed to committing the murder of Devin Bell with Akeem Hargrove,” Summit County Assistant Prosecutor Christopher DeLisio said during opening arguments in the trial.

During Booker’s opening statements in the trial, he said the woman who was going to testify against Hargrove in the trial “was involved.”