A Summit County juvenile judge ruled Tuesday there was sufficient evidence to transfer the aggravated murder case against a 14-year-old Akron boy to adult court.
But that transfer is not automatic.
Under Ohio law, another hearing must be held — an “amenability hearing” — to determine whether Jamal Vaughn is capable of rehabilitation and treatment in the juvenile justice system should he be convicted.
Vaughn’s defense attorney said Tuesday the boy was barely 14 when he was arrested as an alleged accomplice in the April 2 bludgeoning deaths of a New Franklin couple, Jeffrey Schobert, 56, and his wife, Margaret “Peg” Schobert, 59.
Attorney Adam Van Ho laid out the first authoritative motive behind the slayings, arguing in Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio’s courtroom that the main defendant, Shawn Eric Ford Jr., 18, was solely responsible for actually causing both deaths.
Van Ho called Vaughn a “scared kid” who was threatened into going to the Schoberts’ home “in the depths of the hours, by a madman.”
“Shawn Ford had a vendetta against the Schobert family. They were keeping him away from the woman he loved. This was not Romeo and Juliet,” Van Ho said, referring to the relationship between Ford and the Schoberts’ daughter Chelsea. “This was more like Fatal Attraction.”
Ford, who has been indicted on capital murder charges, was the former boyfriend of the younger of two daughters the Schoberts had adopted. His trial is pending in Common Pleas Court.
Van Ho went on to say that, in reviewing police evidence, there was a charge missing from Ford’s indictment: the kidnapping of Vaughn.
Vaughn was “scared out of his wits” by Ford on the night of the crime, Van Ho said, and was brought along against his will as a potential patsy.
Probable cause
Moments later, Teodosio made her ruling that prosecutors had shown probable cause to possibly take Vaughn to trial as an adult.
“I do believe he had plenty of opportunities to remove himself from the scene,” Teodosio said.
Vaughn’s hearing began Monday, and in early proceedings, prosecutors presented his videotaped police interviews, which now appear to firm up a crucial element of the crime.
The boy told detectives he and Ford walked about 8 miles from South Akron to the Schoberts’ home in the Portage Lakes area and that it took them about two hours to get there.
Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Robert Capes said authorities determined the walk took some “17,000 steps.”
In all that time, Vaughn had “17,000 chances, 17,000 opportunities, to abandon the enterprise, to abort the mission, to not go any farther,” Capes told the court.
But he went the “entire distance,” Capes said. And even as Ford was entering the Schoberts’ home through an open window, Vaughn willingly went inside, too, he said.
Despite Vaughn’s statements to police that Ford had threatened him with a knife from the start, it was Vaughn, Capes said, who “possessed and used” the knife in the slaying of Jeff Schobert.
A construction worker who was doing a remodeling job on the lakeside home found both bodies in the master bedroom.
Capes said that after Jeff Schobert was killed, Vaughn took a nap and played a video game. Then he and Ford “waited for Mrs. Schobert to come home.”
Forensic pathologist Dr. Dorothy Dean, who performed the autopsies, testified that the cause of death in both cases was “blunt impacts to the head.”
Case records showed a sledgehammer was recovered in close proximity to the bodies.
Knife used
Dean also said Jeff Schobert had three “small and superficial” stab wounds to the “right flank” on his back. Those wounds, she said in answer to a question from Van Ho, did not contribute to his death.
Earlier, evidence was presented showing that Vaughn led investigators to gloves — allegedly used at the crime scene, then dumped in West Akron — and a knife. Testimony from state investigators showed Jeff Schobert’s blood was found on the knife.
Vaughn also told detectives, initially, he was in the basement of the home when Ford beat the victims with the sledgehammer and, possibly, Vaughn said, a brick. But in a follow-up interview with Vaughn’s mother present, the youth admitted he was in the bedroom and inflicted the knife wounds to Jeff Schobert.
Under Ohio law, Vaughn cannot face the death penalty because of his status as a juvenile. If he is tried and convicted as a juvenile, he would face confinement in a youth facility until he turns 21.
Vaughn’s amenability hearing has not been set.
Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.