State rests in Coonrod trial; investigator says juveniles did not start fire WATCH THE VIDEO

CIRCLEVILLE - The state rested Wednesday in its second presentation of a case against Wesley Coonrod, on charges of murder, and aggravated arson. During the proceedings in Pickaway County Common Pleas Court, jurors heard a state fire marshal's office investigator testify that Thomas and Stephen Coonrod did not start the fire that claimed their lives on March 7, 2010, and the victim's mother testified about learning that her sons had been killed on Thomas's fourth birthday. 
 

Coonrod, 42, of Greenfield, was found guilty in October in Highland County Common Pleas Court on two counts of felony endangering children. He had faced aggravated murder charges with death penalty specifications stemming from a March fire in his apartment on Lafayette Street in Greenfield, during which his sons Thomas, 4, and Stephen, 3, were killed. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the aggravated murder charges, two charges of murder with lesser charges of manslaughter and reckless homicide, and aggravated arson. The state will not seek to retry him on the aggravated murder charges, so he is no longer facing the death penalty. The trial was moved to Pickaway County so that a jury could be more easily seated than in Highland County.
 

On Wednesday, the jury heard from five witnesses from the state, before the defense began the presentation of its case, during which they presented three witnesses. 
 

Felicia Elliot, formerly Felicia Coonrod, testified about her experiences with Wesley Coonrod, and their children. She broke down when she told the jury that she had not seen Thomas or Stephen since Christmas 2009, and that she did not get to talk to Thomas on his birthday, the day of the March 7 fire in Coonrod's apartment on Lafayette Street. 

Elliot did not look at her ex-husband the entire time she was in the courtroom. Several times Elliot broke down crying as she testified. As he listened, Coonrod put his face in his hand and cried. 

Elliot said that while at the Murray-Fettro Funeral Home for the funeral and visitation for the children, she asked Coonrod what happened the night of the fire. 
 

She said that he told her three different versions of the story.
 

Coonrod told her, she testified, that Thomas fell asleep on the couch and that Stephen was in bed with him, then he said he put the boys to bed in sleeping bags in the front bedroom, then he told her that he didn't know where the boys were. 

"I asked him if he'd been drinking," Elliot said. "He paused for a long time, and I said, 'I at least deserve the truth.' He said he'd had a six pack."

Elliot said that he had likely had more than a six pack, and the defense objected. 

Elliot said that when she and Coonrod separated she did not have a place to live, so the boys were living with their father. She has three other children, she testified, and only two live with her. 

She said that at one point prior to their divorce, Coonrod dropped off Stephen at her mother's house with some clothes, his car seat and a notarized letter saying that she could have custody. Elliot said Coonrod said Stephen was "too much to handle," that he cried too much, and alleged that he might not be his son.

 During the first trial, the defense had proposed that the fire could have been caused by one of the children lighting a plastic toy army solider on fire with a cigarette lighter, which then ignited the carpet in the hallway of the apartment. 

Toy army soldiers were found in the closet where Thomas and Stephen's bodies were discovered. 
 

Trace Lawless, an investigator with the Fire Marshal's Office of the state of Ohio, testified Wednesday that he had tests performed using a carpet sample that was like the carpet in the apartment and lit a plastic army soldier on the carpet. He showed the jury the carpet sample and stated that it burned and melted but did not ignite the carpet. He also said that the pattern the toy made was not consistent with the "irregular burn patterns" found in the Coonrod home. 
 

Lawless also testified that through his observations and evidence, the fire was not consistent with juvenile fire-setters in the age range of Thomas and Stephen. 

Lawless said the fire was caused by an ignition of a liquid accelerant in the hallway of the apartment. He testified the only ignition source found in that vicinity was a childproof, blue Bic cigarette lighter. When he interviewed Coonrod the afternoon following the fire, he testified, Coonrod told him that he had two cigarette lighters, one blue and one red. The red one was not recovered.
 

Jurors also heard testimony from Benjamin "Kelley" Stockton, Coonrod's neighbor on Lafayette Street; Bethany Moore, a witness to the fire; Joyce Krech, an emergency room nurse at Adena Greenfield Area Medical Center. 

Krech testified that Coonrod cursed at her after his children were pronounced dead, saying, "why'd you kill my kids?" 

She said that in her 25 years as a medical professional, Coonrod's behavior "was not typical" of a parent that had lost a child. 

On cross examination, she was asked what the appropriate reaction would have been. Krech said parents usually take responsibility for their child's death, but Coonrod was blaming the doctors and nurses. 

When the state had finished presenting its case, Coss dismissed the jurors from the courtroom, and heard a motion from the defense. 

Defense attorney William Mooney asked that, "pursuant to criminal rule 29" that the charges against Coonrod be dismissed, saying that the state had not met its burden of proof. Highland County Prosecutor Jim Grandey said he felt the state had met its burden.

Coss said that "the court recognizes the case is circumstantial," but "it is a matter for the jury to decide. The jury was brought back in and the defense proceeded with its case.
 

The defense presented testimony from Coonrod's former brother-in-law, Donald Scott Pearson, who had been at the apartment the night the fire started; Coonrod's son, Wesley Coonrod Jr.; and Wendy Birchfield, a family friend who joined Coonrod and his family at the hospital following the fire. 

Wesley Coonrod, Jr. testified that in 200,9 he lived with his father and two younger brothers for several months. During that time period, he said that he witnessed the two boys put toys, paper and cardboard into a wall-mounted heater. He said the boys, but typically Thomas, would throw an item in the heater "and run away like they knew they would get into trouble."

He also said that on one occasion, he came home and found that his clothes had been set on fire. 

Pearson and Birchfield testified about seeing Coonrod Sr. at the hospital after he found out his children were dead. 

Pearson testified that he had been at Coonrod's apartment on March 6, hours before the fire started. While the two of them had drunk beer in previous days, they did not drink that night. Before he left, Pearson said, Coonrod put the boys to bed in the front bedroom. 

When he next saw him, Pearson said, Coonrod was on his knees in front of the Emergency Room entrance, in his underwear, crying. 

"I'd never seen nobody look like that," Pearson said. "It was like he wasn't there."
 

Coss stated at the conclusion of the proceedings Wednesday that he would like for the presentation of evidence to be wrapped up Thursday, so that closing statements, instructions, and deliberations could begin on Friday. 

The defense had nine potential witnesses left to call, including expert testimony on the fire investigation, members of Coonrod's family, and possibly Coonrod. 

The state said depending on what happens during testimony from the defense's fire investigator, they may call a rebuttal witness from the state fire marshal's office, who is an expert on juvenile fire-setters. 
 

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