Trial: Jury hears gruesome details

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Local News

July 18, 2018 - 11:42 AM

Joshua Knapp is accused of killing Iolan Shawn Cook in March 2016. REGISTERRICHARD LUKEN

Jurors began hearing the gruesome details Tuesday surrounding the March 2016 death of Iolan Shawn Cook.

Testimony opened in Day 2 of the first-degree murder trial of Joshua Knapp, who is the last of five defendants originally charged in Cook’s killing.

In his opening statement, Allen County Attorney Jerry Hathaway spelled out the prosecution’s case: that a failed drug deal led to Knapp murdering Cook the night of March 13, 2016.

Hathaway said it was Knapp who borrowed a pickup from co-defendant James Myers, with the intention of taking Cook to a desolate area of Allen County and killing him.

However, slitting Cook’s throat failed to kill the 33-year-old, Hathaway said, so Knapp and another co-defendant, Amber Boeken, instead sought a second vehicle — Myers’ gas tank was nearly empty — in order to transport Cook to a desolate part of the Neosho River near Neosho Falls. Hathaway said Boeken and Knapp took Cook to Rhonda Jackson’s home, where Boeken called another man, Brent Cagle of Bronson, to use his pickup.

Cagle then drove Knapp, Boeken and a bloodied Cook on an exhaustive trip through northwest Allen County before finding the river, in order to dump Cook’s body.

It was upon reaching the river the trio realized Cook was still alive, Hathaway said, which compelled Knapp to jump into the water and repeatedly stab Cook in the neck again, with such force that one of the stab wounds severed Cook’s tongue.

From there, the trio returned to Jackson’s home, where Knapp allegedly returned Myers’ pickup, but only after he and Myers washed blood out of the back at a local car wash.

Myers later accompanied Knapp and Boeken to a rural farmhouse, Hathaway said, where Knapp’s and Boeken’s clothes were burned, as were a pair of knives allegedly used in Cook’s murder. Myers also removed the truck bed liner from his vehicle, Hathaway said.

DEFENSE attorney John Boyd countered it was Boeken and Cagle, not Knapp, who killed Cook; that it was Boeken and Jackson who had motive to see Cook punished for the failed drug deal.

“Rhonda Jackson got ripped off by Shawn Cook, and she sent Amber Boeken to collect that debt,” Boyd said. “When Shawn couldn’t pay, Amber Boeken killed him.”

Boyd pointed to a number of inconsistencies in statements Boeken, Myers and Jackson gave to police in the days following Cook’s disappearance. (He was reported missing by relatives March 16; his body was found 16 days later.)

All three had impugned others before eventually telling investigators it was Knapp who committed the crime, Boyd said.

Boyd described Knapp and Cook as “friends.”

“There aren’t going to be any credible witnesses who can convince you Joshua Knapp is guilty of murder,” Boyd said.

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