A panel of 12 jurors will decide the fate of Joshua Knapp, accused of the March 2016 murder of Iolan Shawn Cook.
A total of 14 jurors were selected Monday, including two alternates, at the conclusion of a daylong Allen County District Court session. Judge Daniel Creitz said opening statements of the weeklong trial were to begin this morning.
The 14-member panel seven men and seven women were culled from a jury pool numbering 70, with a handful of prospective jurors dismissed because either their circumstances would prevent them from serving for the weeklong trial; they were familiar with one or more of the witnesses scheduled to testify; or they questioned their ability to impose a fair verdict for one reason or another.
The lengthy process involved a series of questions from Assistant Allen County Attorney Jacqie Spradling for the prosecution and John Boyd, Knapps Ottawa-based attorney. Spradlings questions stretched through the morning; Boyds through the afternoon.
It was during his round of questions Boyd spelled out the defenses theory: Knapp was unfairly targeted after another person, Amber Boeken, murdered Cook at the behest of Iolan Rhonda Jackson because of a failed drug deal. Boyd said Boeken then pinned the murder charge on Knapp in an attempt to get a lighter prison term.
Knapp, Boeken and Jackson all were charged with first-degree murder, along with co-defendants James Myers and Jessica Epting.
Boeken pleaded guilty in early 2017 to a charge of second-degree murder for her role in Cooks death. She testified in a preliminary hearing last summer that it was Knapp who stabbed Cook repeatedly, first in a rural part of Allen County, then on the banks of the Neosho River the night of March 13, 2016.
Cooks body was found by investigators along the river 16 days later.
Jackson pleaded guilty last October to an involuntary manslaughter charge, admitting her culpability in directing Knapp and Boeken to the river with Cook in the back of a pickup. She also pleaded guilty to a count of using a cell phone in the execution of an illegal drug transaction.
Myers pleaded guilty to four counts of obstructing justice, admitting his role in helping Boeken and Knapp destroy evidence, including bloody clothing, following Cooks killing. He was subsequently sentenced to 28 months in prison.
Epting pleaded guilty to obstructing justice, and received a suspended sentence.
Boeken and Jackson will not be sentenced until after Knapps trial.
