'I'm telling the truth today,' Defense presses witness of alleged confession in Donte Parker II murder trial

ELYRIA — On the second day of Donte Parker II's murder trial, the prosecution brought forward a key witness — a woman who said that she drove Parker on the night of the alleged slaying and heard him confess to the killing. Parker, 25, faces 24 charges including multiple felony counts of murder for allegedly shooting Leonard McCall, 39, of Lorain in November of 2024. The Lorain County Prosecutor's Office has argued that Parker, who is from Elyria, entered the Lorain home of McCall's stepbrother on Nov. 25, 2024, and attempted to rob the pair before fatally shooting McCall. Prosecutors said it took months of legwork to determine that Parker was the shooter, and that an important part of building that case was information that came from Rachael Kirkendoll, a friend of Parker's then-girlfriend. In court Wednesday, Kirkendoll testified that she had picked Parker up in her car in Lorain shortly after the alleged murder, that he directed her to drive around the city to pick up pieces of evidence and that she heard him tell his mother over the phone that he had just killed someone. She testified that she had been at her father's home in Elyria with her friend Petra Pintar, who was dating Parker at the time. Kirkendoll said that Parker called Pintar, told her that someone had taken her car — which he had been driving — and asked them to pick him up in Lorain. According to her testimony, Kirkendoll and Pintar picked up Parker in Kirkendoll's car, and Kirkendoll said that shortly after he got in, Parker called his mother. "We were asking what happened, he said hold on, he said he had to call his mom," Kirkendoll testified. "He called his mom and he told her that he just killed someone." She said that she then drove to two different locations in Lorain at the direction of Parker, and that he picked up the alleged murder weapon and a PlayStation gaming system he allegedly stole from the home where the shooting occurred. On the stand, Kirkendoll said that she did not know what Parker did with the gun, but that she had seen the PlayStation in Pintar's apartment in the days following the shooting. Parker's defense attorney Scott Smith tried to cast doubt on Kirkendoll's testimony by pointing to inconsistencies in her accounts of the evening of the murder across two different interviews with police and her testimony on Wednesday. Kirkendoll first spoke to police in relation to the McCall murder during an interview on Feb. 5, 2025, and she again interviewed with Lorain police in May. Portions of the interviews were played in court Wednesday, though not in the presence of the jury. Smith played the videos after Kirkendoll repeatedly said that she did not recall what she initially told police. In both interviews, Kirkendoll originally told police that she had picked up Parker in Lorain and that he had admitted on the phone to robbing, not killing, someone. She also repeatedly told lead Detective Sanders Sanchez that she did not know what happened to the gun or the PlayStation. Smith also said that in the first interview, Kirkendoll said she picked up Parker at Longfellow Park in Lorain, and in the second interview she said she picked him up at Hawthorne Elementary School. He asked Kirkendoll why it was not until the end of the second interview with Sanchez that her "story changed" and she told him about the alleged confession and the drive to pick up the gun and PlayStation. "And then at the very end, you give a completely different story as to what happened," Smith said. "At the very end of this interview, after Detective Sanchez has asked you and asked you and asked you, 'What happened? What happened?' and you have assured him that you're telling the truth and you don't know anything more. And then you finally tell him about this story." Kirkendoll admitted on the stand that she had lied about what happened that night in the first interview and through most of the second. Initially, she testified that she did this because she was afraid that she would get in trouble with the police, but she later added that she was also afraid of Parker. "I was scared of that (being charged) and also just the fact that he killed someone, what do you think he would do if he found out I was talking to the police?" Kirkendoll said. Smith asked Kirkendoll why the jury should believe her testimony if she had previously lied about what occurred on Nov. 25. Kirkendoll argued with the attorney from the stand at various points during her testimony, and Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Raymond Ewers instructed both of them to calm down more than once. "I was scared," Kirkendoll said. "I really don't know what you want me to say. Like, what do you want to hear?" "I want you to tell the truth," Smith replied. "I'm telling the truth today under oath," Kirkendoll said. "I didn't tell the truth to the detectives the first few times because I was scared." Kirkendoll's testimony concluded on Wednesday afternoon after she spent more than two hours on the stand. The trial will resume today. Contact Owen MacMillan at 440-329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.