photo by: Derek Redd

Ohio County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Turak, second from right, discusses the timeline of the Gerald Jako murder investigation. With her are, from left, Wheeling Police Sgt. Ryan Ferrell, Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Wayne Long and WPD Det. Sgt. Rob Safreed.

WHEELING — What Ohio County Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Turak believes would have been a 2 1/2-week trial was condensed into a half-hour news conference Thursday, where police and prosecutors in the case of the murder of a man and his pregnant girlfriend outlined the evidence and testimony they would have used during the trial that was set to begin Sept. 18.

Turak recounted being “shocked” on Monday when Gerald Jako accepted the prosecution’s plea deal. Jako is pleading guilty to two first-degree murder charges for the August 2018 murders of Trevor Vossen and Lauren “Lulu” Jenkins in Wheeling, who was five months pregnant at the time.

Jako faces two life sentences for the murders.

Between Aug. 1 and Aug. 2, 2018, Jako shot Jenkins and stabbed Vossen at his then-girlfriend at the time, Dana Bowman’s, home on Wheeling Island. Jako then drove the remains to Raleigh County and burned them, then hid the remains off of Sullivan Road in Raleigh County.

The remains were discovered 11 days later by Jeffrey Browning, who was in the area looking for firewood to heat his home.

With the investigation of the murders spanning five years and multiple counties in the state, Turak detailed at Thursday’s press conference that the prosecution wanted to lay out the timeline and evidence regarding the case and plea deal.

Turak explained that she believes the motive for the murders was “revenge,” as Jako believed that Vossen had “stolen from him” while Jako was incarcerated for a robbery he committed in 2018.

On why he accepted the plea deal, Turak said Jako “in his own mind believes he has a shot to breathe free air one day.” However, Turak believes this will not occur if the court decides to run his murder sentence consecutive to his 100-year sentence for his 2018 first-degree robbery conviction.

She said that while the state was fully prepared to present its evidence at trial, the acceptance of the plea deal gives the families of Jenkins and Vossen the “closure” they deserve after five years of “recounting the murders.”

With the state planning to call 26 witnesses, including experts from Marshall University and the Smithsonian Institution anthropology department, Turak believes that if the case had gone to trial, Jako would have been convicted “on all counts.”

GERALD WAYNE JAKO

One of these witnesses included Bowman, who Turak revealed pleaded guilty to two counts of concealment of a deceased human body in April 2023. Turak explained that Bowman would have been one of their “key witnesses” in the trial, as Jako threatened her to assist him in concealing the bodies.

Turak added that Bowman would have testified to hearing “three shots fired” at her residence, with a fourth shell casing found at the residence by the Wheeling Police Department that would have been the bullet that killed Jenkins.

“Bowman would have testified that after she had gone to bed that night, she fully expected not to wake up in the morning because of the events that she just witnessed,” said Turak.

Bowman is currently serving two to 10 years in prison for her two charges of concealment of a deceased human body.

The evidence the prosecution displayed at the conference included photos of the site in Raleigh County where Jako hid the remains of Vossen and Jenkins.

Wheeling Police Detective Sgt. Rob Safreed detailed that some of the bones discovered in Raleigh County had straight edges that “indicated dismemberment,” along with Vossen’s glasses being discovered at the site.

Photos taken at the burn pit where the dismembered bodies of Vossen and Jenkins were set on fire were also displayed. Safreed detailed the “multiple tools” found at the site. Other evidence from the burn pit included a small black bag that Safreed explained had fingerprint evidence from Jako and Bowman.

Another location that would have been used substantially for evidence at the trial was Bowman’s residence on Wheeling Island, where the murders occurred. Following tips from a neighbor that Jako was burning something behind the residence, Safreed discovered a “pile of obviously burned material on a concrete pad” in the backyard of the house.

A small piece of bone from the pile was then sent to the Smithsonian Institute of Anthropology, which identified that the fragment of bone belonged to Trevor Vossen.

Also in the burn pile at Bowman’s residence was parts of a “blue, moving-type blanket,” said Safreed. Parts of this blanket were also identified in the burn pile at Raleigh County and Bowman also would have testified that a blue blanket of the same type was used to transport the bodies from her house.

On what was found inside the house, Safreed explained that when walking in, “you might not have imagined that a murder occurred in that house” due to the “lengths taken to clean up the crime scene.”

These lengths included replacing floorboards, repainting walls and spackling holes left in walls left by bullets, which was all done by Bowman.

Despite the cleaning efforts, Safreed explained that cadaver dogs indicated a spot on a cabinet in the household. When the cabinet was sprayed with luminol to find blood evidence, a reaction occurred, indicating blood on the lower part of the cabinet as well as the cabinet doors.

Another spot in between, “a pipe going down into the basement,” that Safreed said he swabbed also tested positive for blood. Bowman’s testimony in the trial would have revealed that this is where Jenkins was shot.

“Bowman then went to the front of her house to compose herself, and when she came back to the kitchen, she saw Jako stabbing Trevor in the neck with a kitchen knife, telling him to die like a man,” said Safreed. “Jako then transported Trevor’s body to the basement.”

After photographic evidence from numerous evidence sites was displayed, the prosecution then played a video of Jako driving through the tollbooth between Charleston and Beckley on Aug. 3.

In another angle of the same video, a trash bag stowed in the back of the vehicle can be seen through the sunroof of the Jeep Liberty that Jako was driving.

The owner of the Jeep Liberty was Holly Mills, who is the “wife of Jako’s best friend,” explained Turak. She added that Mills would have testified in the trial that she received text messages from Jako’s girlfriend at the time, Samantha England, that England had to “get up to Wheeling to help him clean up a mess.”

Using Mills’ vehicle, Jako loaded up his personal belongings from Bowman’s house, asking Mills to “follow him from Wheeling all the way down to Beckley,” said Turak.

“As you can tell from the clip we just showed, we believe that the car was full of the remains of the dismembered bodies of Trevor and Lauren,” added Turak.

Turak said that what she found “incredibly cold” on Jako’s part was that on his way out of Wheeling on Aug. 3, he stopped for dinner at St. Clairsville’s Steak ‘n Shake.

“Not only did he stop for dinner, he went inside with his car stinking and smelling of what was in it,” said Turak. “Jako sat down, and he had a meal with Miss Mills and Samantha, his girlfriend, while his car sat in that parking lot next to whoever else could have smelled it.”

Summarizing the case, Turak said that the incident reflected “the kind of person the prosecution faced” over the past five years: an “emotionless, coldblooded killer.”

Turak explained that the third murder charge for Jenkins’ unborn child was dropped because “no evidence of fetal remains was found at the burn site.”

Through speaking with the Smithsonian anthropologist, Turak explained the prosecution found that the fetal remains “may have likely been consumed by the fire whereas full adult remains were not.”

However, she does not believe the conviction for the third count would have been “a weak case.”

“We have video evidence from Kroger that show Jenkins clearly pregnant approximately two weeks before she was murdered,” said Turak. “We also had medical records that Jenkins was filling out that she had a doctor’s appointment on Aug. 15, 2018, which was the day the remains were discovered.

“We fully believe that we could get a conviction for the murder of that unborn child.”

On how the family and prosecution feel at the end of the five years of work that went towards convicting Jako, Turak said that the plea offer was made “with the blessing of everybody.” She said while the family and prosecution came together in the plea offer, “they never expected Jako to take it.”

“This plea offer represents finality, certainty and closure,” said Turak. “I know a lot of people wanted to know what was going to happen in that trial, but at the end of the day, getting 12 people to get in line and step with one another through the guilty door takes a while.

“So there’s finality here, and that’s always a good thing.”