Double homicide trial set to open
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in Washington County Court in the trial of a Washington man charged in a double homicide at a local bar nearly five years ago.
Judge Katherine B. Emery will hear opening arguments Thursday in the trial for Gregory Randall Avery, 25, whom city police arrested in April in the shooting deaths at the now-defunct Cabaret West bar.
Avery is charged with two counts of homicide in the Feb. 16, 2009, slayings of Troy Saunders Jr., 23, of Canton Township, and Marquis Taylor, 24, of Washington. Another man, Philip Whitlock, 31, of Washington, pleaded guilty in the case in April to third-degree criminal homicide and is expected to testify at Avery’s trial.
Whitlock has told the prosecution he fired a 9 mm handgun, while Avery used a .22-caliber handgun, in the bar on East Chestnut Street after an argument over a song playing on the jukebox. Whitlock apparently became upset when Taylor substituted his own lyrics for a song, using derogatory language.
Taylor was shot eight times with bullets fired from both weapons, police have said. Saunders died from a single bullet to the back fired from the .22-caliber gun.
Avery’s trial was postponed in June to allow his attorney to investigate new evidence presented after a jury was seated that allegedly ties the .22-caliber weapon to shells found at the scene of two other shootings in the city.
One of the casings was found at the shooting of Whitlock’s uncle, Hugh Whitlock, in 2008, and another was pulled from a different crime scene a year later. Neither victim in those shootings initially cooperated in the investigations.
Avery, however, was charged in July with aggravated assault and making terroristic threats in the Hugh Whitlock shooting, as the result of the ballistics evidence.