Judge Will Decide If Jail Calls Admissible in Ohio County Triple Murder Trial
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WHEELING -- A circuit judge will decide by next week whether the phone calls made by a man accused of triple homicide will remain as evidence in his upcoming trial.
Circuit Judge David Sims announced that timeline during a Monday pretrial hearing for Gerald Jako, who faces three counts of murder and two counts of concealing a deceased human body. Jako is accused, along with his girlfriend Dana Marie Bowman, of luring Trevor Vossen and his pregnant girlfriend Lauren "Lulu" Cree-Jenkins to a Wheeling house in 2018, where they were killed, dismembered and their remains burned and hidden in Raleigh County. Cree-Jenkins' death resulted in the involuntary termination of her pregnancy.
The phone calls may be a key piece of evidence in the trial scheduled to begin Sept. 18, as Assistant Ohio County Prosecutor Shawn Turak previously used calls Jako made to his girlfriend from jail in which he intimidated her into refusing to plead guilty to convict Jako of a 2018 robbery.
Depending on Sims' ruling, the state may or may not be able to use phone calls Jako made while in jail from August to September 2018 in the trial. While Turak could not discuss the nature of the phone calls, she confirmed that the prosecution wants to establish that the inmate was warned that the phone calls were monitored so they could use the calls as evidence.
Defense attorney Jeremy Cooper argued that the Southern Regional Jail where Jako stayed had not been in compliance with Chapter 15A of West Virginia Code. This requires that established notice must be placed prominently along or immediately near the telephone to inform an inmate that a call may be monitored.
Cooper cited a former interview between witness Hannah Bare, the Southern Regional Jail booking supervisor, and Detective Wayne Long of the Raleigh County Sheriff's Office as to why he believes the jail was not in compliance with the code. In the interview, Bare told Long the signs notifying inmates that their call was being recorded could have been "chipped and had parts removed."
When it came to Bare's testimony at the hearing on Monday, Cooper stated there is a "question of credibility." Cooper asked Bare whether she had ever seen the signs notifying inmates of recording taken down or torn off, to which Bare responded, "The signs, no, but the protective covering, yes."
Bare explained that Long may have misunderstood her during their interview and that she was referring to the protective covering having damage, which would not impair the readability of the sign.
Turak believes the "three layers of protection" that notify inmates of phone calls being recorded are "sufficient" in proving Jako knew the calls were monitored. These protections are documents signed by inmates when taken to jail, placement of recording signs on or around phones, and an audio warning that the call is being recorded.
Turak said there was no doubt as to whether Jako would have heard the audio warning of recording that is at the beginning of each phone call.
"That is standard for every jail call I've ever listened to," she added. "Deputy Long testified that in the calls he listened to, that warning was there."