Prosecutor seeks single trial for pair of killings

2/21/2013

Prosecutors want a Toledo teenager charged in two different slayings to be tried for both crimes at the same time.

In a memorandum filed Wednesday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, prosecutors say they believe Traquawn Gibson, 18, killed his girlfriend, CreJonnia Bell, on Nov. 18 because she “had information and was a witness to” the slaying Oct. 18 of Deontae Allen for which Mr. Gibson also is charged.

“In the cases at hand, the acts alleged by the state of Ohio are connected together and involve a plan and a course of conduct on the defendant’s part,” Lindsay Navarre, an assistant prosecutor, wrote in the memo.

A hearing on the request to join the cases was set for 8:30 a.m. Monday before Judge Ruth Ann Franks.