Staff photo / Ed Runyan From left, Kenneth Carter and Terry Hopkins listen to testimony in their murder trial Friday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

YOUNGSTOWN — Closing arguments were given in the Kenneth Carter and Terry Hopkins murder trial Friday morning in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, but the jury went home Friday evening without reaching a verdict. The jury will resume deliberations Tuesday morning since Monday is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

During closing arguments, Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor John Juhasz admitted that some evidence in the trial did not turn out perfectly, but the testimony of Rasean Graham Jr., 19, son of the murder victim, was unwavering.

Carter, 35, and Hopkins, 23, went on trial this week in the Jan. 24, 2025, murder of Rasean Graham Jr., 42. Carter and Hopkins are accused of killing Graham in Graham’s home on Griselda Avenue on Youngstown’s South Side. Carter and Hopkins both lived in the home in earlier years, and both are related to Graham Sr.

“One thing is true, Rasean Graham Jr. never wavered. He never wavered in anything he said,” Juhasz said of the victim’s son.

“He told the police that night who did it.” It was not drug dealers or a stranger, Juhasz said. “Family did this. Whatever chances that poor kid had or didn’t have in this life, his life was shattered on Jan. 24, 2025, when these two men came in” and killed his father, Juhasz said of Carter and Hopkins.

Carter told Graham Sr. he was coming over to Graham’s house that evening to straighten out a disagreement over the sale of Graham’s house, according to trial testimony from Graham Sr.’s uncle, Joe Poole.

When Carter and Hopkins entered the home, Carter told Graham Sr. not to disrespect him. “And then he shot (Graham Sr.) not once, not twice, four times,” Juhasz said.

The murder statute in Ohio is straightforward, Juhasz noted. “No person shall purposely cause the death of another. That’s what Kenneth Carter did, and that is what Terry Hopkins helped him to do,” Juhasz said.

Graham Jr.’s testimony told police who killed his father, Juhasz said. “Rasean Graham Jr. showed more bravery than anybody else involved in this case. He came into this courtroom and demonstrated that bravery by saying these are the guys who did it, that my family killed my dad,” Juhasz said.

Graham Jr. testified that he awoke in his bedroom to footsteps, then heard gunshots downstairs. “I heard my dad say, ‘Why are you shooting me?’ And I heard Ken Carter say ‘Don’t disrespect me again.'”

Graham Jr. testified that he looked down the stairs and “I turned around the corner and saw Terry Hopkins. He had on black with a ski mask, but it didn’t cover his whole face.” When it seemed safe, Graham Jr. went down to the front room downstairs and saw his fallen father, but

he did not see Carter or Hopkins in the house, he said.

Juhasz then discussed the testimony Wednesday from two Youngstown police officers that indicated that multiple officers were not wearing gloves when they handled a watch taken from Carter that later tested positive for gunshot residue.

Juhasz said it’s possible gunshot residue that an officer could have picked up on his hands while doing chest compressions on Graham Jr. could have contaminated the watch. “Do I wish they had worn gloves? Sure,” Juhasz said.

He said even if the gunshot residue evidence is questionable, the testimony of Rasean Graham Jr. is not.

“You can’t shake that kid’s testimony because it’s the truth. Carter and Hopkins were in his home that night. He knows it. They are relatives. They (had) lived there. He knows what they look like, even when (Hopkins) has a mask.”

DEFENSE ARGUMENT

When it was the defense’s turn, attorney Frank Cassese said prosecutors “ask you to convict two people of murder based on testimony that contradicts science, contradicts common sense and contradicts itself.”

He said the coroner’s testimony was that one of the shots that hit Graham Sr. was a “through and through” and that nothing in the body stopped the bullet’s trajectory.

Cassese mentioned the remark of Youngstown Patrolman John Wess that was captured on body camera video. In it, Wess wondered why there was no bullet hole in the walls of the house when there was a rifle bullet shell casing inside the house.

“Now (prosecutors) don’t want that to be a big deal,” but, “It made sense to (Wess) a 14-year veteran. He’s seen more crime scenes than prosecutors do,” Cassese said. “It’s a big deal when you are on trial for murder.”

Then Cassese turned to the testimony of Graham Sr.’s uncle, Joe Poole, who said he was on the phone with Graham Sr. the evening Graham Sr. died, even as Graham Sr. told Poole that Carter had arrived at Graham Sr.’s house.

Cassese suggested that maybe Poole remembered a phone call with his nephew on a different night. “Maybe he did talk to him and Kenny (Carter) was coming over — a week before, a day before, two weeks before.”

Cassese mentioned the issues with the gunshot residue testing on Carter’s watch, saying a Youngstown police officer was preparing to handcuff Carter and “removed (Carter’s) watch, and he didn’t have gloves on. He set the watch on the cruiser. (Youngstown patrolman Ian) Rudolph took the watch off the cruiser.”

Cassese said at least one of the officers who handled the watch without gloves had gunshot residue on his hands — Rudolph. Cassese said Rudolph heroically tried to save the life of Graham Sr. by doing chest compressions on him.

As for Graham Jr., Cassese said he does not believe he lied “on purpose. But the reality is there are problems with his testimony, not because I think he is lying, but because I think he got the wrong information. He was misled” by another relative who was at the house that evening — James Jennings. Graham Jr. testified that after the gunfire, Jennings came into the house and told Graham Jr. to “run with me. That’s what I did. Ran to get help.”

Cassese said if someone like Jennings puts “something in your brain right away, it’s a traumatic event,” a person might believe it.