Sparks fly on final day of testimony in Bonita Wright murder trial

When Bonita Wright stabbed her boyfriend to death, was she the abused, or was she the abuser? That is one of the questions facing a Lorain County Common Pleas jury tasked with deciding the 31-year-old Elyria woman's innocence or guilt in the 2022 death of Keyron Ficklin. Closing arguments are expected in the case Thursday. Assistant Lorain County Prosecutors Matt Kern and Daniellela Leigh rested their case in Judge Christopher Rothgery's courtroom on Tuesday after spending the better part of a week trying to convince jurors that Wright was not a "battered woman" and didn't kill Ficklin in self-defense. Instead, prosecutors said, she murdered him after belittling and controlling him for a large part of their yearlong relationship. Wright has pleaded not guilty to murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence in the Aug. 31, 2022, killing of Ficklin, 28. She did not take the stand in her own defense on Tuesday, though the defense theory of the case was one of self-defense in the face of an assault by Ficklin. Defense attorney Kenneth Lieux, who also rested his case Tuesday, called two witnesses: Wright's mother, Anna Moore, and forensic psychologist Dr. James Eisenberg, the latter to testify about battered women syndrome. The cross-examination of defense witnesses by prosecutors provided for some of the most dramatic moments of the five-day trial so far. Moore testified her relationship with her daughter has "always been close, very close" and that they spoke every day until Wright got into a relationship with Ficklin, which started in 2021. Within five or six months of the two becoming a couple, Wright "really didn't come around as much as she normally did, she was not responsive to being asked to come over, things like that," her mother testified. "It was like a wedge" between the two women, Moore said, and Wright was "on edge … jumpy." Prosecutors objected on hearsay grounds whenever Moore tried to testify to what Wright told her about her relationship with Ficklin. She was able to testify that she had seen injuries on her daughter, including "scratches on her neck and arms." Wright had Ficklin arrested on domestic violence charges in February 2022, but failed to show up in court and the case was dismissed. Moore said it was her understanding "they were not going to see each other anymore" after charges were filed, but the breakup didn't last, she said. On cross-examination, Leigh brought up multiple negative-sounding comments Wright made to and about Ficklin and her own family in text messages, audio recordings and during her interrogation. She asked Moore if she knew what her daughter had said. In almost every instance, Moore said she didn't. Moore wasn't aware that Wright belittled Ficklin by often calling him "young man;" that Ficklin had to ask Wright for money and rides; that Wright called Ficklin the N-word and an "irritating (expletive) mother(expletive);" told him to be more "manly" and muscular; called him "embarrassing" and a "slut;" and several times threatened to "beat" him, she said in court. Lieux also called Eisenberg, a board-certified forensic psychologist with decades of expertise testifying in court and doing psychological examinations of accused criminals, to the stand to testify about "battered woman syndrome." Eisenberg testified he reviewed the documents in Wright's case and interviewed her over Zoom for 90 minutes. He described domestic abuse, which he said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control now calls "intimate partner violence," includes cycles from which victims can't escape and that abusers use to control them. Women don't leave their abusers because of guilt, fear, shame, humiliation, embarrassment, because they are taught to stay, have low self-esteem, for economic reasons or because they believe they can change their abuser. But the cycle "repeats and generally doesn't get any better," Eisenberg said. Knowing what consequences she faced if she was an abuse victim could explain why Wright didn't show up in court to testify against Ficklin, he said. On cross-examination, Kern got Eisenberg to admit that while Wright told Elyria police that she had been in three previous violent relationships, she told the psychologist none of her previous relationships were violent. Eisenberg said Kern's suggestion that Wright's statements to police were inconsistent didn't change his mind about her version of events. "In every case, there's always inconsistencies," he testified. Wright had information about prior incidents and "was always consistent with me" even if her version was "consistent with a person who had a poor memory of the event," Eisenberg said. Not all psychologists agree about battered woman syndrome either, Eisenberg admitted, though "most people in my profession agree it's a condition." Kern then dropped the biggest bombshell of the day: He asked Eisenberg about a 2022 federal appeals court ruling involving a case Eisenberg testified in, asking him if it was "fair to say you have a low opinion of young Black men?" and whether he had "previously testified about a need to lock them up and keep them out of society because they can't be reformed." Ficklin was Black. A little more than a week before his death, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 22, 2022, overturned the death sentence of Odraye Jones — now known as Malik Allah-U-Akbar — who was convicted of shooting and killing Ashtabula police Officer William Glover Jr. in 1997. In that case, the appeals court ruled that Eisenberg presented inappropriate "racialized testimony" during the penalty phase of trial at the request of Jones' attorney. Eisenberg testified that Black men with antisocial personality disorder "would commit more murders — he claimed that about one in four 'African American urban males' suffered from the disorder, and the only treatment for them was to 'throw them away, lock them up,'" according to the federal appeals court. Eisenberg's "opinion coincided precisely with a particularly noxious strain of racial prejudice — that of Black men as 'violence prone' — which offends the Constitution on its face …" Judge Richard Allen Griffin wrote in the decision. Following Kern's questions, Eisenberg twice turned to Rothgery and told him he couldn't answer because the Jones case was still being litigated. Rothgery told Kern to move the questioning along. After he was dismissed from the stand, Eisenberg approached Kern and had a brief conversation. Kern then appeared to hand him a copy of the appeals court ruling. Kern declined to say what the two men discussed. Autopsy Earlier in the day, county Coroner Dr. Frank Miller testified that a single stab wound through a major blood vessel and into Ficklin's heart had killed him within minutes. The wound was about 4 inches deep, passing first through the upper right lung and aorta. This caused Ficklin to bleed internally, Miller testified. He testified the shape of the wound was "very consistent" with a steak knife collected by Elyria police at the scene and covered in Ficklin's blood. The wound track also was at a downward angle, "consistent" with an overhand strike and inconsistent with a suicide, Miller testified. Ficklin could have continued moving around for several minutes as he bled. He soon would have struggled to breathe, coughed blood, and experienced low blood pressure, Miller testified. "He'd have known he was stabbed but not the severity of his injuries," the coroner said. There is no way to know how long the knife was in Ficklin's body, though it is possible he could have survived the wound if he had received prompt medical attention. Blood tests showed only marijuana metabolites in Ficklin's system — enough to make it illegal for him to drive, the coroner noted — but no other drugs, Miller said. Wright turned in her chair and looked away as the autopsy photos were shown in court. Rothgery denied defense motions to acquit Wright of the charges. He told the jury he expected they would get the case Thursday morning, when the trial resumes. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.