Jury selection to start Friday in 2024 Lorain murder case (UPDATED)

Jury selection is scheduled to start this morning in Lorain County Common Pleas Court for the trial of a Lorain man accused of shooting and killing another Lorain man at an Oberlin Avenue gas station in May 2024. Keon Reed, 21, of West 23rd Street, faces nine total charges including aggravated murder, murder and felonious assault in the killing of DaJuan Townsend, 20, and the alleged assault of three other victims. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held in the Lorain County Jail on $1 million bond. Firearm specifications to the charges could add mandatory prison time to any sentence Reed gets if convicted. The case will be heard by Visiting Judge William McGinty. If jury selection proceeds as planned Friday, opening statements are likely to occur Monday. The Lorain County Prosecutor's Office said Lorain police officers were called to the Sunoco gas station at 3105 Oberlin Ave. shortly after 3 a.m. May 5, 2024, for a report of a shooting. There was evidence of shots fired, with witnesses telling police multiple cars and multiple shooters were involved. Townsend, who had been shot, was taken to Mercy Health Hospital in Lorain where he later died. Known as DaeDae, he was survived by a newborn daughter and a large family. Reed allegedly ran from Sunoco to a waiting car outside the Lorain Plaza Shopping Center at the southeast corner of Oberlin Avenue and Meister Road, the Prosecutor's Office said. Investigators later identified him as the shooter. Also charged is Kelaina Flores, 22, of Fulton Road. She has pleaded not guilty to five counts of complicity to aggravated murder, four counts of complicity to felonious assault and one count of possession of criminal tools, all felonies, plus firearms specifications. The parties agreed in January to merge the cases for trial, with Reed and Flores going to trial together but represented by different attorneys. That was before Flores waived her right to a jury and asked McGinty decide her guilt or innocence in a bench trial. Because of that, and the possibility of Flores' defense calling a particular witness to testify, "the basis upon which these matters were originally consolidated no longer exists," Assistant Prosecutor Daniellela Leigh wrote in a motion filed with the court on Wednesday. She asked McGinty to again sever, or split up the trials, arguing that trying both defendants together would now would be confusing and inefficient. McGinty hadn't made a ruling on the request as of 3 p.m. Thursday. This story has been updated to correct the name of the judge presiding over the case and the spelling of the victim's name. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.