Donte Parker II found guilty of murder in 2024 shooting

ELYRIA — Donte Parker II has been found guilty of murder by a Lorain County Common Pleas Court jury on Wednesday in the shooting death of Leonard McCall Jr. The jury found Parker not guilty on the most serious charges – four aggravated murder charges as well as one murder charge – but still found him guilty of 19 counts in McCall's 2024 shooting death in Lorain, including seven counts of murder. Parker, 25, of Elyria sat silently and watched Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Raymond Ewers as he read the verdicts, only turning briefly to look back at his family seated behind him. Parker was convicted of seven counts of murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of aggravated burglary, two counts of felonious assault, improperly discharging a firearm into a habitation, conspiracy and two counts of tampering with evidence, all felonies. The jury also found him guilty of two misdemeanors; theft and criminal damaging. Defense attorney Scott Smith, who is representing Parker, asked Ewers to make a judgement notwithstanding the verdict, requesting that Ewers overturn the jury's decision and rule in favor of the defense. Smith told Ewers that he believed that the jury's finding was inconsistent, arguing that it should not be possible to find Parker not guilty of aggravated murder but guilty of murder, or to find that he was guilty of aggravated assault or aggravated robbery but not aggravated murder. He said state law required the jury to find Parker guilty of aggravated murder if he was guilty of the prerequisite charges, and so the jury did not understand the jury instructions. Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Matt Kern said that there was no basis under law for a judgement notwithstanding the verdict based on inconsistent verdicts. Ewers told Smith that he was free to file a motion, and gave him two weeks to do so. The judge said he would schedule a sentencing hearing after that motion was handled, and in the meantime he returned Parker to the Lorain County Jail and revoked his $2 million bond. "We respect the jury's verdict, but we wholeheartedly disagree with it," Smith told The Chronicle after court adjourned. "I think there was plenty of reasonable doubt in this case. There were holes in the prosecutor's case, there is nothing that ties Donte Parker directly to the scene of the crime. There's no DNA, no hair, no fluid, no blood. So essentially, the state's case boiled down to the testimony of an unreliable witness and cellphone data and pings." An alternative theory With its verdict, the jury signaled that it had been convinced by the prosecution's explanation of how McCall was killed on Nov. 25, 2024. The jury found that Parker entered the West 14th Street home of McCall's stepbrother in Lorain with the intent to rob the men. In the process of that robbery, Parker shot McCall seven times, killing him, and made off with a stolen PlayStation 5 gaming console. During its case, the prosecution argued that cellphone records and location data placed Parker in the area of the murder on the night of Nov. 25, and also supported the testimony of its key witness, Rachael Kirkendoll. Kirkendoll, a friend of Parker's then-girlfriend, said she was called to pick up Parker in Lorain after the murder and that while he was in the car, Parker admitted over the phone to his mother that he had killed someone. She also said that Parker directed her to drive to different locations in the city where he picked up the murder weapon and the PlayStation. Another key piece of prosecution evidence was store records and surveillance footage that showed Parker selling the PlayStation stolen from the murder scene just eight days after the shooting. From his opening argument, Smith attempted to lay out a competing theory of how McCall was killed, arguing that it was another man by the name of Cerrius Shelton who had committed the crime. Smith argued that the only evidence placing Parker near the crime was cellphone records, and that it was possible that Shelton had Parker's phone that night. He posited that Shelton and Parker sold drugs together, and Parker gave Shelton his phone that night so he could make sales with it. Kirkendoll did change the story she told police between two interviews over the course of several months, and Smith accused her of lying on the stand. In his closing argument, Kern argued that although Kirkendoll's story did change, even her first version included details that were not known to police for months after and that her account of events matched the evidence better than anything the defense had proposed. After the trial, Smith said that he believed that relying only on the testimony of Kirkendoll and cell phone data created not only what he saw as a weak case, but a bad precedent. "I think this verdict sets a dangerous precedent because it opens the door for people being found guilty (based) on cellphone data and cellphone pings instead of evidence that is gathered at the scene of a crime," he said. Smith said he would move to have the verdict overturned, and if Ewers would not overturn it and Parker is sentenced, Smith said he expected that either himself or a new attorney would appeal the verdict. Escape and other cases Regardless of a sentencing date or outstanding motion, Parker will appear before Ewers again quickly, as he is set for a pretrial hearing in four other felony cases on Wednesday, Sept. 16. In one case, the prosecutor alleges that Parker kidnapped, strangled and robbed an Elyria woman in December 2024, the month after he killed McCall. In February 2025 during a wellness check at a girlfriend's apartment, Elyria police found Parker hiding under a bed with a gun and arrested him on multiple felony warrants as well as federal probation violations. As police were walking a handcuffed Parker out of the apartment, Parker escaped and ran, still handcuffed, eventually escaping from police. Parker was the subject of a five month, multi-state manhunt before he was rearrested in July 2025 after returning to Elyria. Following his arrest Parker was charged in the 2024 case and also charged with escape, obstructing official business and having weapons under disability, all felonies, on the night that he escaped police. Parker was also charged with obstructing official business and possession of criminal tools, two more felonies, for fleeing from police on the day he was rearrested last summer. Most recently, Parker was charged on Jan. 9, 2026 with felony possession of a deadly weapon while under detention after he was allegedly caught with a makeshift knife in the Lorain County Jail. Smith is representing Parker in the four additional cases as well. Contact Owen MacMillan at 440-329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.