Thread: Jury gets case of knife death

Last Updated: 8:35 am | Friday, May 25, 2007
Jury gets case of knife death
BY JANICE MORSE | JMORSE@ENQUIRER.COM
LEBANON - Even if a jury convicts a pair of illegal immigrants of murder, the search for who killed Kevin Barnhill isn't over, officials say.

That's because neither Jose Mota, 40, nor his brother, Humberto, 31, is accused of wielding the knife that killed Barnhill last summer in Mason.

Barnhill was killed after a racially charged fight between whites and Mexicans escalated outside the Mason Pub on Aug. 26.

"The defendants share responsibility for this murder ... they aided and abetted the unknown or unclear murderer," said Assistant Prosecutor Josh Engel. "This was a fistfight ... (and) someone with these defendants took a knife to that fistfight."

Barnhill's buddy, Josh Morel, was drunk and "sucker-punched" Jose Mota in the face, Engel said.

"His friend was rude, used racial slurs with Jose Mota and started the fight with Jose Mota," Engel said. "All of that does not mean that he (Barnhill) deserved to be murdered."

But defense lawyers Christopher Cornyn and Timothy McKenna said their clients didn't accompany about four men who chased Barnhill around the side of the building while he yelled for help. Barnhill ended up dead behind the plaza.

A jury of seven women and five men deliberated for an hour Thursday in Warren County Common Pleas Court before recessing; they will resume their work this morning.

The Mota brothers lied to police about their actions on the night of the slaying, Engel said. Also, in the home the Motas shared with several other Mexican men, investigators found two T-shirts "stuffed in a sump pump" that were stained with Barnhill's blood, Engel said.

The defense lawyers said that evidence doesn't directly link the crime to their clients. They argued that the evidence presented at trial is weak. They also pointed out that Enrique Torres, 36 - a third suspect who also is charged with murder - hasn't been caught.

"A conviction that is solely based on circumstantial evidence is no less sound than one that is based on direct evidence," Engel said.
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Illegal Immigrant Sentenced In Murder Of Reds Accountant

POSTED: 11:32 pm EDT May 25, 2007

LEBANON, Ohio -- A jury issued a split verdict Friday in the trial of two illegal immigrants accused of murder.

Jurors convicted Humberto Mota of complicity to murder but acquitted his brother, Jose Mota, of the same charge.

The pair were charged in connection with the August stabbing death of Kevin Barnhill, 27, outside the Mason Pub.

Investigators have said a third man, Enrique Torres, killed Barnhill. Torres still has not been captured.

Witnesses said Barnhill, who worked in the Cincinnati Reds ticket department, was stabbed in the heart when a fight over a game of pool spilled outside.

A judge sentenced Humberto Mota to 15 years to life in prison.

Jose Mota was turned over to the custody of the Department of Homeland Security because he's an illegal alien.

http://www.wlwt.com/news/13394268/detail.html