Jury deliberations begin in West Chester homicide case

Gray says he thought he cut a friend in melee that left girl dead.

Khrendon Gray, 19, talks with his attorney David Albrecht during opening statements March 8, 2010, in front of Butler County Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth.

Nick Daggy/Staff photographer Khrendon Gray, 19, talks with his attorney David Albrecht during opening statements March 8, 2010, in front of Butler County Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth.

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By Lauren Pack, Staff Writer Updated 11:22 AM Thursday, March 11, 2010

HAMILTON — Jury deliberations have begun this morning, March 11, in the homicide trial of a Cincinnati teen accused in the fatal stabbing of Lakota West High School sophomore Amber Robinson.

The jury of eight women and four men was excused to the jury room just before 10:45 a.m. Thursday.

When 19-year-old Khrendon Gray walked into court Wednesday, March 10, for Day 3 of his murder trial, he told his mother, who was seated in the front row, “I am going to tell them the truth. The truth will set you free.”

Minutes later, Gray, the only defense witness in Butler County Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth’s courtroom, admitted that he grabbed a knife and stabbed someone on the night that Lakota West High School sophomore Amber Robinson was killed.

He told the court that he and his friends were surrounded and rushed by a “swarm” of 30 to 40 people at North Pointe Townhomes and that he grabbed a knife that fell out of a bookbag.

“I started swinging for my life — there were too many of them. I was swinging to get them back from us,” Gray said.

He said that at first, he thought he had stabbed one of the friends he was trying to protect. It wasn’t until later when he got into a car and left that he learned Robinson, who was in the group that rushed him, was dead.

It was the second fight of the night, Gray said. Robinson and another girl had gotten into a fight earlier that calmed down when police arrived, he said.

A charge of complicity to murder against co-defendant Rashon Martin was thrown out by Spaeth after he determined the prosecution had not proven its case against the 18-year-old.

Under cross-examination by county Assistant Prosecutor Brad Burress, Gray said he was not hurt in the fight and that he jumped into a friend’s car holding the bloody knife as the car sped away.

“You thought you might have killed your friend and you left your buddy there to fend for himself,” Burress asked Gray.

“Yes, I panicked,” Gray answered.

During closing statements, Assistant Prosecutor Lance Salyers pointed to the testimony of the a coroner’s office forensic pathologist who said Robinson was stabbed twice — with one 5- to 6-inch wound piercing her heart.

Salyers said the wounds were not from someone swinging a knife, but intentionally inflicted by a person approaching Robinson from behind and using a left hand to stab her. Gray uses his left hand to write, Salyers said.

“She never saw it coming,” said Salyers, who showed the jury Robinson’s pink-striped high-top tennis shoes she wore the night she died.

In other testimony, witnesses reported that Gray said he stabbed Robinson because she was “talking stuff” and that he had threatened to kill the teen following the first fight.

Defense attorney David Albrecht said Gray and his three friends were jumped by a large group and where “in the fight of their lives” when Gray grabbed the knife.

“He said he stabbed her, but he did not commit murder,” Albrecht told the jury, which will begin deliberations today, March 11.

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