MOUNT VERNON – Nearly 14 months after Kevin Remillard allegedly murdered his cousin, Nick, in their Gambier home, the defendant took the witness stand to testify in Knox County Common Pleas Court on Thursday afternoon.
Kevin was the last of 18 witnesses called during the trial, the only one summoned by the defense.
Knox County Public Defender John Pyle asked Kevin about what he remembered from June 10, 2017, the day he allegedly killed Nick with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
Kevin said that he had probably not slept the night before, as he was experiencing severe stomach and rotator cuff issues at the time. He said he didn’t trust doctors enough to see one about his health issues.
That Saturday morning, Kevin believed that his neighbor, Roy Daubenspeck, might offer to take him to Wal-Mart to get groceries. This was a common occurence, Kevin testified, as he did not have a car and Daubenspeck was often nice enough to drive him there. He expected that they also might hang out afterwards.
But when Kevin realized that Daubenspeck was going on a canoeing trip with his girlfriend’s family that day, he quickly sunk into a depression. He testified he had suffered with frequent bouts of depression since the age of three or four years old, which he said was when he first thought of committing suicide.
Kevin testified that after Daubenspeck left to go canoeing, he entered Daubenspeck’s unlocked house and took his gun, which was in his office. Kevin said that he had first seen the pistol nearly a year earlier and that he and Daubenspeck often fiddled with it in his office in between odd jobs that Kevin would perform for him.
Kevin said that Daubenspeck was likely scared to testify that they both handled the gun frequently in each other’s presence.
Pyle asked Kevin about whether he ever owned a firearm himself, and Kevin replied, “No.”
“I never was into them,” he said.
Kevin testified multiple times that he only took Daubenspeck’s gun because he wanted to use it to commit suicide later that day. He said he planned on going down the bike path near his house, finding a spot and ending his life.
But Kevin said that what happened between the time he took the gun, which he said was just after noon, and approximately 4:30 p.m., when he was seen on video surveillance at Gambier’s Village Market, was a blur.
He believes he went up to his room and thought about where to go to kill himself. Kevin testified that he doesn’t remember loading the pistol or going to Village Market.
He said he kept the pistol under his pillow for most of the day.
After Nick got off the phone with his mother at approximately 6:30 p.m., Kevin testified that he went downstairs to talk to him. He had bought a 12-pack of beer at the market and remembers drinking beer that afternoon.
Kevin testified that he talked to Nick downstairs that evening. He said that he brought the pistol downstairs with him because he was contemplating going to kill himself, although he also figured he might have wanted to return the pistol before Daubenspeck found out it was taken.
Kevin then said he and Nick were sitting across from each other in the living room of their 405 Gaskin Ave. residence, examining the gun. They talked about how it looked like a gun used on the TV show ‘Walking Dead,’ Kevin said, and they passed the gun back and forth.
At one point, though, Kevin testified that he fired a shot into an adjacent wall. He said that he pulled the trigger, although he doesn’t remember why. Once he accidentally shot the gun, he said he stood up in shock and fiddled with it, trying to remove the cylinder while walking away from Nick.
When he was fiddling with the gun, he testified that the gun accidentally went off again. He said that he didn’t know it had shot Nick, and that right after the second shot went off, he went on to the porch to try to remove the cylinder once more.
In the courtroom on Thursday, Pyle had Kevin demonstrate how the two sat in the living room that night. The jury watched as Kevin imitated the first shot, which went off the wall, and got up to replicate the second.
Kevin testified that he went to return the weapon to Daubenspeck’s house because he didn’t want him to find out he took it. He said he came back to find his cousin moaning on the floor. He said he pulled him up to get the chewing tobacco out of his mouth and gave him water, per his request.
But after he set his head back down, he said Nick died. Kevin said multiple times that he remembers nothing of that night after Nick died, but he remembers drinking beer at the house the following day.
Kevin testified that he does not remember writing either note – the note in Daubenspeck’s driveway or the eight-page letter in his room – and that he does not remember placing Nick in the pool. He testified he does not remember throwing clothes on the living room floor, which was proven to be soaked with blood, and that he last remembers the clothes to be folded in the baskets in the room.
During testimony, Kevin repeatedly said that he did not intend to shoot Nick with either shot. He testified that he had brought the gun downstairs to return to Daubenspeck and that the only reason he took the gun that day was to kill himself.
The majority of Knox County Prosecuting Attorney Chip McConville’s cross-examination of Kevin revolved around the idea that Kevin had told a vastly different story in testimony than what was portrayed in the notes left on the scene.
McConville asked Kevin a series of questions about his decision-making process after the shots were fired. Why he didn’t call 911 after Nick had been shot? Did he not think that the police would be called to investigate the dead body in his living room? Why did he decide to keep the gun after initially going to return it to Daubenspeck’s house?
While Kevin said that he could not call the police because he did not have a phone, he could not answer the questions because he said he does not remember what was going through his head at the time.
Earlier in the testimony, Kevin said he had he remembered heading to Ariel-Foundation Park with the gun on June 11, the day after the alleged murder. He said that he had planned to kill himself near one of the park’s ponds, although that never happened. Instead, he sat and drank the rest of his beer at the pond.
Kevin testified that he proceeded to place the pistol in a potato chip bag and threw it in the Kokosing River. He said he discarded of different pieces of the gun and ammunition in ponds and rivers around Mount Vernon, spending the next three days walking around aimlessly, bumming cigarettes off the ground and eating nothing until he turned himself in on June 14.
McConville questioned why Kevin wouldn’t turn the gun, which he claimed to have malfunctioned on June 10, into the police. Again, Kevin said that he didn’t know what was going through his mind at the time.
Kevin testified that he knew how to load the pistol, but didn’t remember doing so on the day of the alleged murder. He testified repeatedly he didn’t remember writing either note, one of which admitted to killing “Nick” multiple times, signed by “Kevin,” and that he has spent the last year looking at the notes and trying to remember doing so, but to no avail.
“Mr. Remillard, your note is not particularly consistent with what you’ve told us today,” McConville concluded, pacing back and forth during questioning.
McConville also probed Kevin about his past as an abusive father, something that was mentioned in the eight-page letter, and Kevin admitted to bruising his son once in a disciplinary setting. He said that when he did it, it scared him; he didn’t want to end up like his father.
Early in Pyle’s questioning, Kevin was asked about a Facebook page under his name, which he confirmed was his. The page featured numerous posts about both murder and suicide. Kevin said that none of the posts were aimed at Nick.
After nearly an hour of testimony, the defense chose to rest its case.
What’s next
On Friday, the jury will hear closing statements from the prosecution and defense and receive instructions from Judge Richard Wetzel.
The court determined Thursday the jury will be presented with three options to consider in convicting Kevin in the death of Nick: murder, reckless homicide and negligent homicide. The firearm specification applies to all three homicide charges.
The jury will also be asked to decide whether or not to convict Kevin of tampering with evidence.
According to the Ohio Revised Code, to convict the defendant of murder, the prosecution would have had to prove Kevin killed Nick with purposeful intent. To convict the defendant of reckless homicide, a lesser charge, the prosecution would have had to prove Kevin recklessly caused the death of Nick. To convict the defendant of negligent homicide, the prosecution would have had to prove Kevin negligently caused the death of Nick.
And to convict the defendant of tampering with evidence, the prosecution would have had to prove Kevin altered, destroyed, concealed, or removed any record, document, or thing, with purpose to impair its value or availability as evidence in a proceeding or investigation which he knew was in progress or was likely to be instituted.
Wetzel said he will inform the jury of their options before closing statements begin on Friday morning.
Forensic witnesses testify
Before Kevin testified on Thursday, the prosecution called their final six witnesses to the stand.
Rebecca Barrett, a forensic scientist from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), testified that after comparing Kevin’s handwriting samples to the notes left on the crime scene, she believes the same person wrote both.
Heather Williams, another forensic scientist from BCI, testified she believed the bullets found on the scene were .38 caliber – meaning a .357 magnum, which is the type of gun that was taken from Daubenspeck’s house, would likely have shot them.
Dr. Jeff Lee, the chief forensic pathologist at the Licking County Coroner’s Office, testified he believed Nick had been shot from a two to three-foot range, based on the pattern of gun powder stippling burn marks around the bullet hole wound in his cheek. He believed that after an examination of the body, the bullet appeared to enter through the cheek and hit the jugular vein. He identified the gunshot wound as Nick’s cause of death.
Lee testified that he believed the victim had taken four to 10 minutes to bleed out, using brain swelling patterns as an indicator. He also believed that the victim was shot and killed before being placed in the pool, as he showed no signs of being drowned.
Samuel Troyer, a forensic DNA analyst from the BCI, testified that DNA swabs from the apparent blood stains on the living room carpet and couch cushion, the shoes found in Kevin’s room and the floor sample near the doorway matched Nick’s DNA. He also testified that DNA samples taken from inside the shoes found in Kevin’s room matched both Kevin’s and Nick’s DNA.
Dr. Jennifer Ogle, Knox County Coroner, testified she ruled Nick’s death officially as a homicide and that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. She also said she was given the toxicology report from Montgomery County, which revealed that Nick had not been under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of his death.
Among the series of forensic witnesses to testify on Thursday, Robert Stringfellow, who works at Gambier’s Village Market, also took the stand. He testified that Kevin had been a regular customer at the store, consistently buying beer and cigarettes.
The prosecution played video surveillance of the afternoon of June 10, 2017, which showed that Kevin had stopped into the store around 4:30 p.m. It showed Kevin lingering around for what seemed to be more than 10 minutes, talking to workers after his purchase.
Stringfellow testified that their interactions with Kevin were typically minimal, as he was a quiet customer. On that day, though, Kevin could be seen pacing around the store. Stringfellow said he seemed agitated and it made him and his co-workers uncomfortable.
“He just wasn’t himself that day,” Stringfellow testified.
