By By NORMA LERNER / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS – A jury selected Tuesday morning in Cass County Circuit Court began hearing testimony for the trial of 18-year-old Jeremy Joseph of Cassopolis.
Joseph is accused of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to do great bodily harm less than murder, felonious assault and three counts of felony firearms on the night of Dec. 12 at Dr. T. K. Lawless Park southeast of Vandalia.
Forty-six charges against three men each stemmed from a fight at the park – apparently over a teen-age girl.
In June, 18-year-old Allen Hatton of Vandalia pleaded guilty to two of the 46 charges of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and received 57 months to 10 years prison and a concurrent 23 months to four years for felonious assault with a dangerous weapon.
Aaron Whitman, 18, of Vandalia got six to 10 years for conspiracy with intent to commit murder and two consecutive years for felony firearm.
A jury found him guilty on June 15.
Whitman also received concurrent two- to four-year terms for 13 other related convictions.
Chief Assistant Prosecutor Jason Ronning, in opening remarks Tuesday. said the three men went to the park with a "meeting of minds" to assault someone.
Joseph's intent was to kill.
On top of that he faces four counts of assault with a weapon, four counts of felony assault with a shotgun, five counts using a baseball bat and carrying a firearm with unlawful intent.
Ronning said the fight started when Derek Fetters got a call from a girl regarding a fighting match at Lawless Park.
He went to Legends in Edwardsburg, a restaurant-sports bar on M-62, to find four friends he had been working with in construction at apartments in Edwardsburg to back him up.
They went to the park in a Ford Bronco owned by Michael Whitacre. The four men had been drinking beer and left with Fetters to watch the fight.
The five of them, Fetters, Whitacre, Ricky Armstrong, John Slone and Andrew Skibowski, drove to the park.
They went into a ditch on the way, and someone pulled them out with a car. They continued to the park on Monkey Run Street and pulled in.
No one was there. They waited and proceeded to leave when a red Dodge Neon car pulled up with the three men.
Armstrong was the first man out of the Bronco and was ambushed.
He received head injuries from a baseball bat, was shot with pellets from a shotgun and got a broken arm.
Armstrong was airlifted to Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo.
Skibowski was also injured and Slone got out of the car, but never got back in. He was left hiding in a snow bank.
As the victims tried to escape and enter their vehicle to drive away, they were shot at with shotguns.
When they drove away, shotguns pellets continued to hit their car as they sped along Monkey Run.
Joseph was arrested the next day after school ended at Cassopolis Ross Beatty High School, where he was a senior.
Testifying for the prosecution were sheriff's detectives, a paramedic, a Cassopolis policeman, a girlfriend of Joseph's, Armstrong and Whitacre.
Police told of finding a pool of blood in the parking lot, a baseball hat, a tire jack handle, a smashed-out window, shotgun shells and a couple of hats.
Dowagiac defense attorney Roosevelt Thomas said that for all the guns found and exhibits, there were no DNA samples that connected Joseph with the evidence or any particular individual.
The trial is expected to last through Thursday.