Staff photos / Ed Runyan ... Defense attorneys, from left, Dave Betras and Frank Cassese speak to defendants Kenneth Carter and Terry Hopkins during a break in their murder trial Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Kyle Hilles told jurors Tuesday that the case against Kenneth L. Carter, 35, and Terry Hopkins, 23, was built upon a dispute between Carter and the man he allegedly killed Jan. 24, 2025, Resean Graham, 42, over a home on Griselda Avenue on the South Side where both men lived at one time.

“You will hear testimony that three days before the killing, there was a serious argument,” Hilles said during opening statements in the trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. “Carter and Resean Graham Sr. bought the house together. Carter wanted to sell. Resean did not. He lived there. His child lived there. The disagreement was about money, control and respect. And it was unresolved.”

Hilles said, “On Jan. 24, the victim told people that Carter was supposed to come by later that day to drop off money. Instead, Carter came early, and he did not come alone. Inside the house were the victim and his close friend, James Jennings. Upstairs, asleep in his bedroom was the victim’s child, Resean Graham Jr.”

Hilles said Resean Graham Jr. will testify that he awoke to gunshots and “a voice he knew well, someone he had lived with for years say, ‘Don’t disrespect me.'” Resean Graham Jr. recognized that voice as Kenneth Carter’s, Hilles said.

He also recognized someone in the home, despite him wearing a mask, “But Resean Jr. recognized him anyway, by his build, by his body, by his facial features as Terry Hopkins, a family member and a close friend he had known for years,” Hilles said.

Carter was arrested a few hours later with guns in his car. Gunshot residue was found on his wrist, Hilles said.

The trial resumes this morning.

Defense attorney Frank Cassese described the state’s case against Carter and Hopkins as “garbage in, garbage out,” implying the evidence they will present is not believable. He said one problem is that neither Resean Graham Jr. nor Jennings called 911.

The city’s ShotSpotter system, which notifies the Youngstown Police Department of gunfire on the South Side, indicated gunfire at 7:04 p.m. on Jan. 24. “911 was not called until 7:36 p.m.,” Cassese said.

He said even though Carter had two guns in a car he was driving later Jan. 24, “neither of those guns match the ballistics at the scene.”

Cassese said Jennings spoke to police at the police station two days after Graham’s killing and told police he had gone back to the crime scene the evening of the killing, “but never approached the police and said ‘I was here when this happened,'” Cassese said.

TESTIMONY

One of the witnesses Tuesday was Resean Graham Jr., 19, who said he lived with his father from about age 14 or 15 at the house on Griselda Avenue until his father died. He said Carter, Hopkins and Jennings also lived there.

As for Carter, he is related to him, but “I don’t think of him as family no more,” since his father died, Graham Jr. said under questioning by Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor John Juhasz. Graham Jr. said he thinks Carter and Hopkins are brothers. He thinks Carter lived there for about 2 1/2 years. He said Carter moved out about “five months or less” before his father died.

Graham Jr. was asked about the night his father died, saying Carter and Hopkins did not live there, but “they were still coming over.” Graham Jr. was in his bedroom upstairs that evening asleep.

“I heard footsteps. I am a light sleeper, so when I heard footsteps, it woke me up.” Then he heard shots downstairs. “I heard my dad say ‘Why are you shooting me?’ And I heard Ken Carter say ‘Don’t disrespect me again.'” Graham Jr. said.

“Are you sure it was Ken Carter?” Juhasz asked.

“Yes,” Graham Jr. said.

“You recognized his voice even though you were upstairs?”

“Yes,” Graham Jr. said.

“Did you hear Terry Hopkins say anything?” Juhasz asked.

“No,” Graham Jr. said.

He heard four or five shots, Graham Jr. testified.

Graham Jr. said he looked down the stairs and “I turned around the corner and saw Terry Hopkins,” Graham Jr. said. “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 father, but he did not see Carter or Hopkins in the house.

He said he saw Jennings because “I guess he was coming back in the house.” Jennings told Graham Jr. to “run with me. That’s what I did. Ran to get help.”

“You didn’t call 911 at that time, right?” Juhasz asked.

“I wasn’t even thinking about my phone,” Graham Jr. said.

He said he does not know the place they ran to. He called his mother. The two of them “went back to the crime scene” before going to his mother’s house, he said.

“Is there any question the voice you heard that night was Kenneth Carter?,” Juhasz asked Graham Jr.

“I know for a fact it was him,” he said.

When asked if there was any doubt that the man in the mask was Terry Hopkins, Graham Jr. said, “I knew it was him.”

Graham Jr. said he was at home when his father and Carter had an argument about the house on Griselda, where he and his father lived. It happened three days before his father was killed.

On cross examination by Cassese, Graham Jr. said multiple times he did not remember much of what he told police the night his father was killed.

Cassese asked if he went to the police station with his mother the night his father was killed.

“I don’t even remember who I was with that night. I just remember being there,” Graham Jr. said.

Cassese asked again about Graham Jr. being at the police station with his mother, and Graham again said “I don’t remember her even being there. I had just seen my father murdered. I don’t even remember little stuff like that.”