Judge won’t dismiss Dayton triple murder case

“Based on well-developed law, the court must not examine the quality or quantity of the state’s evidence, or lack thereof, to support the indicted charges and must find Mr. Humphrey’s motion without merit,” the decision says.

Humphrey’s attorney, Lucas Wilder, argued that there is a lack of evidence in the case and that the judge should dismiss the charges.

Humphrey is charged in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court with murder, felonious assault and having weapons under disability. He is accused of killing 45-year-old Dontay Alston of Dayton, 48-year-old Michael A. Jackson of Dayton and 37-year-old Justin Wilson of Wilmington in November at a home on the 2600 block of North Gettysburg Avenue in Dayton.

Dayton police began the investigation into the shootings when a man used his dying breath to call for help. The man called 911, according to Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center records, and the dispatcher noted in the call log that the man “was barely coherent,” but confirmed he was one of the gunshot victims. He identified the shooter as a person called “Mont.”

Within 51 seconds of making the call, he was no longer responding to the dispatcher, 911 records show. Not long after that, the line went quiet.

Wilder’s motion references the 911 call and says that another person or two with a similar name may have been involved.

The defense also said inside the home where the three men were killed, there were “...two large indoor marijuana grow stations, several cell phones, hundreds of small printed baggies, a scale, large bags of marijuana, two guns and over $24,000 in cash.”

Credit: Jim Noelker

Credit: Jim Noelker

The defense said police had an active drug investigation regarding the house. The defense also said Humphrey was either excluded or not the source of several DNA samples collected at the crime scene, that there are no eyewitnesses or video and “only one gun was allegedly used at the scene of the murders.”

“This gun expels .40 caliber ammunition. Humphrey did not allegedly own, possess or get caught with a type of gun which expels .40 caliber ammunition,” the motion said.

Prosecutors responded by arguing that Ohio law doesn’t allow a judge to dismiss a case based on lack of evidence before a trial.

After the original motion was denied, Humphrey filed his own motion asking a judge to compel his attorney to file subpoenas seeking additional evidence from authorities. That motion had not been ruled on Wednesday afternoon, according to the case’s docket.