Trial begins in July 2025 Vermilion drive-by shootings case

ELYRIA — A jury is expected to decide this week the role a Sheffield Lake man had in a series of drive-by shootings that terrified or surprised Vermilion-area residents on a quiet July morning last year. Jacob Bray, 19, of Abbe Road in Sheffield Lake, went on trial Monday in Lorain County Common Pleas Court. Free on bond, he has pleaded not guilty to charges including felonious assault, improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation or school safety zone, discharging a firearm on or near a prohibited premises, tampering with evidence, improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle and improperly furnishing firearms to a minor plus firearms and drive-by shooting specifications. No one was injured in the multiple shootings along Brownhelm Station Road that witnesses described on Monday. Bray's defense is expected to be that his 16-year-old accomplice, whom he allegedly barely knew, was behind the shootings. And while the guns that were used in the shooting were in Bray's possession, "I think at the end of the day the facts are going to show that the state cannot show beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Bray, my client, had anything to do with pulling the trigger in any of these shooting events," defense attorney Jason Harless told the jury in his opening statement. Vermilion police Cpl. Brian Beckwith testified that he and two other officers responded around 3:30 a.m. July 23, 2025, to a report of shots fired on Brownhelm Station Road. They searched the area, then responded to a call that a house in the 3400 block of Brownhelm Station Road had been hit by gunfire. Tracy Huffman testified that she was the only person in the house that morning when she was awakened by a loud noise outside. She tried to go back to bed, until a bullet entered her bedroom in a shower of sparks. Huffman dropped to the floor, crawled out of the room, got her cellphone and called 911. Police arrived "fast," and found bullet holes in her walls and roof, Huffman testified. Several bullets broke picture frames with photos of her daughter and granddaughter in them and one passed through a wall a few feet above a crib her granddaughter sleeps in when she visits. Huffman testified she slept in her basement for a week after the shooting, afraid the shooter would return. "It's really hard to talk about it," she testified, choking back tears. "It's very emotional for me." Neither Huffman nor any of her neighbors who testified Monday saw the shooter or shooters. Security cameras on houses along the street failed to identify a suspect or suspect vehicle, residents and police testified. Acting on a tip he received including Bray's name, Vermilion police Detective Nick Kowal testified that he used Flock license plate reader cameras to identify Bray's father's truck. He tracked the truck through Avon Lake, Sheffield, Lorain and Amherst in the hours before the shootings. There are no Flock cameras within Vermilion city limits, Kowal testified, so there was no camera footage nor any eyewitness evidence putting Bray's father's truck in the city at the time of the shootings. Kowal admitted on cross-examination that most of the Flock camera images he reviewed weren't good enough to identify who was in the truck that night. One witness testified she saw what she thought was a black SUV with its lights off in the area that night, but couldn't be more specific in her description. Police eventually identified Bray and a 16-year-old boy as suspects, and using search warrants, seized evidence including an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a shotgun from locations in Lorain and Sheffield Lake. The younger boy was charged in Lorain County Juvenile Court. The status of his case wasn't immediately available Monday. Testimony resumes today in Judge Giovanna Bremke's courtroom. Outside the presence of the jury, Assistant Prosecutor Brian James told Bremke that Bray was cited Saturday afternoon with driving on a suspended license and no operator's license, both misdemeanors, after being pulled over by Sheffield Lake police. James said there was some concern Bray was trying to flee ahead of his trial. Harless said his client appeared for trial on Monday and has never not shown up for court while staying in constant contact with his attorney. When it came to deciding whether to revoke Bray's bond, Bremke declined to do so but said she would take the matter under advisement. She warned Bray that if he fails to show up for court, the law says his trial can continue on without him — and that it would. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.