Defense presses detective at Jocquez Ross murder trial

ELYRIA — Defense attorneys for Jocquez Ross tried to pick apart the behavior of Elyria police detectives on Monday, the fifth day of their client's murder trial. Ross, 29, of Lorain, is facing the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder in the death of Michael "LuLu" Lewis and his wife, Fannie Thomas-Lewis, who were shot dead in the rental car on Fox Hill Lane in Elyria on Jan. 31, 2016. Retired Elyria police detective Sgt. Don Moss, who investigated the killings prior to retiring last year, testified Monday that Ross' girlfriend Brooke Nolen "didn't receive a benefit from me" after sitting down to talk to him and prosecutors in October 2016. Moss said he wasn't authorized to offer Nolen immunity or anything else for her testimony against Ross or any kind of special treatment. He made the statements while being cross examined by defense attorney Kimberly Kendall Corral. Corral argued that Nolen had not been forthright and that investigators and prosecutors pressured her into giving evidence against Ross. Moss said he didn't threaten Nolen with obstruction charges. Her attorney at the time, Mike Duff, brought up the possibility she could be charged during an Oct. 19, 2016, meeting, he testified. "I never threatened anybody," Moss testified. "There was a lot of conversation about (Nolen) being honest, because she was in the midst of some very serious charges ... I don't threaten people in interrogation." Investigators said they could prove, through cellphone records, that Ross was not with Nolen like she said he was in her original interview with police. Nolen has not testified in the case, and through her attorney told the court she would assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to the witness stand. Prosecutors successfully lobbied Judge Christopher Rothgery to allow them to use Nolen's prior statements to police against Ross, saying he tried to pressure her not to testify through letters and phone calls from the Lorain County Jail, where he was being held on other charges in October 2016. Nolen's testimony to a Lorain County grand jury also was read to the jury on Monday. Ross does not admit to killing anyone in the jail letters, which he wrote while awaiting trial on drug charges, but Assistant Prosecutor Tony Cillo noted that in one letter he sent to Nolen in October 2016, Ross wrote: "I don't mind going to prison for a few years to clear your charges, but the other (expletive) is a death penalty case." The letter was sent several months before Ross was charged with the murders, Cillo noted. Nolen told investigators Ross threw a pair of pants out the window of her car as she drove him to his sister's house in North Olmsted late in the evening of Jan. 31, 2016, or early the following morning. He also made reference in a phone call she overheard to a metal detector that someone was supposed to take out to the area of the old Walmart off Ford Road in Elyria. Police later searched that area for a discarded cellphone and believe it is where Ross discarded the murder weapon, a 9mm handgun. The pants, cellphone and murder weapon never were recovered. Records custodians from Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile also testified Monday about cellphone records for phones belonging to Ross around the time of the murders. Prosecutors have said the phones, who they called and where the calls were made tie Ross to the crime scene and give a timeline for his movements. Testimony resumes this morning. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him at @daveobrienCT on Twitter.