Jury can’t agree on murder counts in Upatoi triple homicide trial

After 13 hours of deliberations in the triple murder trial of Rufus Leonard Burks, jurors Thursday had reached unanimous agreement on only three of the 10 counts against the 17-year-old, the judge announced before the jury was dismissed at 4:45 p.m.

Those counts are burglary, kidnapping and auto theft.

Burks also faces these charges: three counts of malice or intentional murder; three counts of felony murder for allegedly killing the three victims while committing the felony of aggravated assault; and a second count of auto theft.

On the murder charges jurors seemed irreconcilably split. Without saying which way jurors were voting, McBride said the divide on each of the malice murder charges was 5 to 7. He said the vote on two of the felony murder charges was 4 to 8, and the third was reported only as “undecided.”

The vote on the second auto theft charge was 2 to 10, the judge said.

The demographics of the 12 jurors are four black men, four white men, two black women and two white women. They are to return at 9 a.m. Friday.

Since deliberations began at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday, jurors repeatedly have sent McBride notes asking legal questions or making requests. Some of those the judge has discussed privately with attorneys at the bench. At least a couple appeared to involve interactions between individual jurors.

About 10:45 a.m. Thursday, the judge mentioned a juror needed a “special accommodation.” The woman summoned from the jury room to the bench was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, but it wasn’t clear whether she was tearful from emotion, an allergy or some other cause.

At 1:43 p.m., the judge got another note he handled privately with the attorneys. On that occasion, a male juror was called to the bench, speaking quietly but demonstrably, after which the jury foreman came out.

After those discussions, McBride told a deputy to inform jurors they were to continue deliberating. It was 2:35 p.m.

Soon after, at 2:52, the jury asked for a break. Jurors fook another break about 4 p.m.

Now 17, Burks is on trial for the brutal Jan. 4, 2016, homicides of Gloria Short, 54; her son Caleb Short, 17; and granddaughter Gianna Lindsey, 10; who were bound and beaten to death in the Shorts’ 3057 Bentley Drive home.

The charges against him are three counts of malice or intentional murder; three counts of felony murder for allegedly killing the three victims while committing the felony of aggravated assault; two counts of auto theft; and one count each of kidnapping and first-degree burglary.

Among the jury’s earlier questions was how authorities determined the value of the two vehicles stolen from the Shorts’ home. Prosecutors in closing arguments noted each was worth more than $5,000, that value being the threshold between a felony theft charge and a misdemeanor.

Jurors also wanted to know whether police had any surveillance video of Burks and codefendants Jervarceay Tapley and Raheam Gibson in the automobiles, a GMC Envoy and a Volkswagen Beetle. Gibson, who testified for the prosecution, said he and Burks left the Shorts’ home in the Beetle and Tapley left later in the Envoy.

The jury also asked whether Burks could be found guilty of stealing the Envoy through “knowledge after the fact.” Prosecutors allege he is guilty of the Envoy’s theft as a party to the crime, meaning he participated regardless of whether he took the vehicle himself.

And jurors asked whether Burks’ felony murder charge was based strictly on killing people while committing the felony of aggravated assault, or could it refer to any felony. McBride instructed them that it was based only on the assault counts.

Around 3 p.m. Wednesday, the jury had prosecutors replay surveillance videos that authorities say show the three suspects traveling up Illges Road and passing the Columbus City Services Center off Macon Road, with two riding a moped and one following on a bicycle.

Investigators said Burks and Gibson were on the motorized bike and Tapley was pedaling the bicycle behind them.

Burks’ codefendants are not on trial. Tapley already has pleaded guilty to three counts of murder. Gibson has agreed to plead guilty, but hasn’t yet. His attorneys said earlier that they had not settled on which charges he will plead to, though Gibson on the witness stand said he’d been told he would spend 30 years in prison. He is 21 now.

He and Tapley, now 19, are to be sentenced March 23.

The background

During closing arguments Tuesday, both sides recounted testimony from Gibson and from Marcus Dermer, a fourth teen Tapley recruited for the scheme. Dermer did not accompany the trio, deciding instead to spend the evening with his girlfriend.

All four met the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2016, when Tapley told them he wanted to do “a lick,” meaning commit a robbery or theft. They were to rendezvous around 6 p.m. at Arbor Pointe off Benning Drive in south Columbus.

Gibson said that when Dermer didn’t show, the others started toward Bentley Drive, with he and Burks on the moped and Tapley on the bicycle. They traveled up Illges Road to Macon Road and turned east.

The bicycle broke down near the state driver’s license bureau on Macon Road, so Tapley ditched the bike, and they took turns “leap-frogging” on the moped, with two going ahead before one turned back to get the third.

They arrived on Bentley Drive some time after 10:30. Gibson said Tapley led them into the backyard, called Caleb’s cellphone and asked Caleb to come to his rear bedroom window, where Tapley told him to go out the front door.

When Caleb came out, Tapley pinned him down and called Burks to help bind him with tape before they dragged him into the backyard. Tapley then came back around and went in the front door, Gibson said.

As he waited outside, Gibson heard no commotion from inside the house, and had no clue what was happening, he said: “I was just standing there confused.”

Eventually Burks called him to the garage, and they left in the Volkswagen, which had been loaded with items taken from the residence, including pairs of Nike Air Jordan sneakers, which Caleb collected.

Burks had to drive the VW because Gibson is mentally challenged and unable to. Tapley went back inside the Shorts’ home, saying he would find more things to steal, Gibson said.

Driving back into town, they tried to call Tapley, but got no answer. They had reached the Wynnton area of midtown when Tapley called back and told them to meet him in Oakland Park off South Lumpkin Road. Tapley was waiting for them with the Envoy when they got there, Gibson said.

They moved the loot from the VW to the Envoy, and Tapley collected all the car keys, telling Gibson and Burks to walk to his Calhoun Drive home. He drove there in the Envoy.

Police later found both vehicles abandoned in Oakland Park. Also stolen from the Shorts’ home were cash, a coin collection, a PlayStation 4 game machine and some games.

The bodies were found around 7:30 a.m. Jan. 4, 2016, when Gloria Short’s husband, nurse Robert Short Sr., came home from working a night shift at Northside Hospital. “They’ve been tied up and beaten!” Robert Short sobbed on his 8:02 a.m. 911 call. “Who would do this to my family? Who would do this?”

Gloria Short was found in a hallway, just feet from where Gianna lay in an adjacent living room, a 20-pound dumbbell on the floor beside her. The dumbbell bore blood from all three victims. Caleb Short was found in a closet off the home’s master bedroom, bludgeoned so badly his teeth were knocked out.

Later autopsies showed Gloria Short and Gianna not only had massive head trauma, but also cuts and stab wounds – 23 on Gianna, 11 on her grandmother.

Besides the cold-blooded brutality of the crime and the little gained from it, the suspects’ ages were shocking: Gibson was 19; Tapley was 16; Burks was only 15.

Burks’ attorney Jennifer Curry has argued Burks was not inside the house when the three victims were killed. Burks had no motive to murder the family so violently, but Tapley did, she said.

Only Tapley, the suspect who knew the slain family had the motivation to bludgeon them while ransacking their Bentley Drive home, Curry said.

He once spent his summers with the Shorts, accompanying them on trips to ballgames and to Disney World. He was connected to the Shorts through Gloria Short’s brother, Robert Averett, his grandmother’s boyfriend, because he lived with the couple.

The prosecution countered that one suspect acting alone could not have bound all three victims with tape, beaten them repeatedly with a 20-pound dumbbell in two different parts of the house, ransacked the home and stolen two vehicles.

Tapley was alone with the victims for only about 20 minutes after Burks and Gibson left in the VW, and could not have run from room to room beating people and destroying furnishings so quickly.

“You’re not going to be like the Energizer Bunny running from one person to another with a 20-pound weight,” said Chief Assistant District Attorney Al Whitaker, later adding, “I’m going to tell you, it takes two to make this nightmare come true.”

This story was originally published February 15, 2018 at 5:06 PM with the headline "Jury can’t agree on murder counts in Upatoi triple homicide trial."