MOUNT VERNON – The moment Caleb Sarge was convicted of murder looked nearly identical to the moment before, and the moment after.
The 28-year-old man, who cried and cursed and divulged deep personal insights during police interviews in the hours after he shot and killed 41-year-old John Serio Jr., had seemingly hardened in the 15 months since.
He sat emotionless through three days of witness testimony last week, as the details of Serio Jr.’s killing were relitigated in front of a Knox County Common Pleas Court jury. Sarge was facing 15 years to life in prison, having been charged with murder (including a firearm specification) and tampering with evidence.
The trial featured 19 witnesses and 96 pieces of evidence. There were photos from the scene – his house at 608 N. Sandusky St. in Mount Vernon – and the autopsy, showing how the bullet from Sarge’s .22-caliber revolver had pierced Serio Jr.’s lungs and grazed his heart, causing him to bleed out internally on the night of Nov. 25, 2019.
Sarge watched as former friends and co-workers testified against him – as personal text messages were read aloud, and details of his drug-dealing career became public.
Through it all, Sarge remained expressionless. His hands remained folded, his eyes fixed forward. Nothing changed at 4:45 p.m. Friday, when the jury returned with a unanimous decision after six hours of deliberation:
Guilty on all counts.
As his family exited the Knox Memorial, which has been used as a courtroom during the pandemic to ensure social distancing among jurors, Sarge broke figure, giving a two-finger wave. He was then placed in handcuffs, folded into a sheriff’s cruiser, and driven back to the Knox County Jail, where he’s stayed since the night that changed everything.
The task facing the jury last week, in deciding Knox County’s first murder trial since 2018, centered around one word: “purposely.” In order to find a defendant guilty of murder in the state of Ohio, the jury must conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he or she “purposely” caused the death of another.
Because no juror is capable of peering into the defendant’s brain during the time of the offense, the determination of “intent” relies largely on physical evidence surrounding it. Attorneys will use the evidence to shape their own narratives about the event.
This was the case last week, when the prosecution argued Sarge had purposely killed Serio Jr., while the defense claimed he had acted in self-defense.
Here were the key elements of each side’s argument:
The case for murder
In order to prove Sarge murdered Serio Jr., Knox County Prosecutor Chip McConville first had to prove Sarge killed him. He established this early on, through witness testimony from detectives and forensic scientists who investigated the case. Evidence showed Sarge fired the gun that carried the bullet that killed Serio Jr.
Sarge never denied that.
“There’s no doubt that Caleb Sarge caused the death of John Serio Jr.,” McConville told the jury during his closing statement. “From the time the patrol officers arrived at the scene, Caleb Sarge admitted that he had shot John Serio Jr.”
What Sarge did deny is that he did it purposely. McConville’s counter-argument consisted of two main elements: evidence from the scene, and evidence that he said shows “consciousness of guilt.”
Evidence from the scene showed Sarge fired a single-shot revolver that night. According to testimony from Andrew McClelland, a lab technician with Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, this type of gun requires two actions to fire – first, it must be cocked; then, the user must pull the trigger.
“The action of this gun requires you to make some deliberate choices to fire it,” McConville said.
The gun was also fired at close-range. Curtis Jones, the trace evidence department supervisor at the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office, testified that 21 to 36 inches likely separated the muzzle from the target in this case. Furthermore, the shot went straight into Serio Jr.’s upper-left chest – within inches of the heart.
“The use of a gun, and the place where that shot was aimed, shows purpose to kill,” McConville said.
McConville then noted the size difference between Sarge and Serio Jr. Sarge is 6-foot-3, 538 pounds; Serio Jr. was 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds. Sarge said during police interviews that he “wasn’t scared” of Serio Jr.
Sarge told police that Serio Jr. threatened him that night, saying “I’ll beat your fat ass” and calling Sarge a “b*tch.” When he approached Sarge later on, Sarge thought Serio Jr. may have had a knife (it turned out to be a glass meth pipe). Regardless, McConville said Sarge’s response was unjustified.
“Self defense (by Ohio law) requires that a person uses reasonable force. Here, the force used was excessive. John Serio Jr. was unarmed …” McConville told the jury. “Using deadly force to confront less-than-deadly force is excessive.”
McConville then used several pieces of evidence, from before and after the shooting occurred, in an effort to convey the purpose behind Sarge’s actions.
Sarge and Serio Jr. met approximately one month before the shooting. Sarge had begun dealing drugs, and Serio Jr. had recently relapsed on meth. The two traveled to Lancaster a week before the shooting to buy $1,000 in inventory, Sarge told police, but were robbed instead.
In the days leading up to the shooting, Serio Jr. was living with Sarge at 608 N. Sandusky St. Serio Jr. had been kicked out of his previous residence, Sarge told police, and he was letting him sleep in his basement.
Things weren’t cordial, however, according to those who knew Sarge and Serio Jr. at the time.
Former housemate Amanda Meley testified that days before the shooting, Sarge’s headphones went missing. Sarge blamed Serio Jr., Meley said, and threatened to kill him (she didn’t call the police because she feared losing her “connection”).
Meley said Sarge seemed “erratic” and “angry” in the days leading up to the shooting. She moved out Nov. 20, fearing for her safety.
On the day of the shooting, Sarge and Serio Jr. had gotten into an argument over money. Genevieve Daniels had asked Serio Jr. if Sarge wanted to buy Adderall off her, and Sarge declined. This angered Serio Jr., who was high on meth at the time, according to toxicology reports. He came upstairs to confront Sarge, which is when the shooting occurred.
When the bullet pierced Serio Jr.’s chest, he fell to the floor, dropping his glass meth pipe on the couch nearby. Sarge told police that he stood over Serio Jr. as he twitched and gasped for air, pleading the homeowner to call 911.
“He wasn’t sure if he was in shock,” Det. J.T. DeChant recalled Sarge saying during an interview, “or if he ‘just didn’t give a f*ck.’”
Experts testified that Serio Jr. likely died in less than three minutes, given the location of the bullet (near the heart) and the amount of meth in his system (which increases one’s heart rate and blood pressure).
Sarge confessed during police interviews that he eventually drug Serio Jr.’s body to the dining room (where it would be out-of-sight and away from windows), placed Serio Jr.’s phone in a saucepan filled with water, and considered hiding the body. He sent texts to and from Serio Jr.’s phone after his death, in an effort to make it seem like he was still alive.
“I was ready to make him disappear,” Sarge told DeChant.
In the moments after the shooting, Sarge began texting and calling close acquaintances. Cell phone records show he reached out to nearly 20 people in the minutes after the shooting, McConville reminded the jury. He never called 911.
One of the people he contacted during this time was Ashley Bales, a coworker at Boost Mobile in Mount Vernon. Sarge told Bales he’d killed Serio Jr., she testified, and that he was planning to hide the body. She hung up and called 911.
“Without Ashley Bales stepping up, right now a jury might not be hearing this case,” McConville said in his closing statement. “And John Serio Jr.’s body might never have been found.”
Moments later, Sarge called Taylor Pauley, an ex-girlfriend he’d met while working in West Virginia in 2013. While the two still communicated from time to time, Pauley testified that Sarge’s call that night caught her off-guard. He told her what he’d done, and asked for help.
“He told me he didn’t know whether to shoot John again or get rid of the body,” Pauley testified.
Cell records show that Sarge asked Pauley, who still lives in West Virginia, if she knew anywhere he could take the body.
“No,” she replied.
“Damn, not some random river in the mountains or nothing?” he asked.
“(I don’t know) dude,” she responded.
Sarge told Pauley “that would be best,” and he expressed concerns that she wouldn’t trust him after this.
The conversation concluded around 7:20 p.m., records show, just 15 minutes before police arrived at the residence. Pauley testified that, at that point, Sarge still seemed unsure about his next course of action.
“He was on the fence about whether to call the cops or get rid of John’s body,” Pauley testified. “He told me that if he called the cops, he was going to try to tell them it was self-defense.”
Sarge followed through on this. He greeted detectives on the scene and immediately said he’d shot Serio Jr. He led them to the body, the gun used, and offered two police interviews in the 24 hours after the incident. He claimed self-defense, saying he felt threatened by Serio Jr. in the moments leading up to the shooting.
But McConville called these statements “self-serving, (in an effort to) get to self-defense.” He said Sarge’s true intentions were revealed by the things he said and did in private, before and after the incident occurred.
“You need to consider: Are these things consistent with a person who has committed a murder and wants to try to avoid responsibility for it? Yes. Absolutely,” McConville told the jury in his closing statement. “Are these things consistent with someone who has justifiably killed someone in self-defense? Absolutely not.”
The case for self-defense
Brandon Crunkilton and John Dankovich, criminal defense attorneys with the Mount Vernon Public Defender’s Office, shaped a different narrative around the case.
In claiming self-defense, they noted that Serio Jr. was high on meth at the time of the incident. According to Dr. Jeff Lee, chief forensic pathologist at the Licking County Coroner’s Office, Serio Jr. had enough meth in his system to potentially overdose. Lee testified that using meth can make people feel paranoid, anxious, and invincible.
This is what Serio Jr. was feeling when he marched up the stairs that night, Crunkilton said, and charged towards Sarge, who was sitting in a recliner just a few feet away. While it was Sarge who pulled the trigger, Crunkilton said Serio Jr. ultimately chose to get high that day. Drug addiction has consequences, he said, no matter how difficult it can be to overcome.
“Addiction is a beast that most of us do not understand …” Crunkilton said. “And when an addiction explodes, people get hurt.”
Evidence showed that Serio Jr. approached Sarge quickly that night, kicking a file box out of the way in the process. Sarge told police that Serio Jr. appeared to have a knife in his hand, and that he reached for Sarge’s gun, which was resting on his lap.
While there was clearly a size difference between Sarge and Serio Jr., Crunkilton reminded the jury that Sarge was sitting while Serio Jr. was standing. He added that 5-foot-10, 170 pounds is nothing to be scoffed at.
“I’m 5-foot-11, 200 pounds,” Crunkilton told the jury, his voice booming across the theatre. “Do I look small? What if I’m hopped up on meth, coming at you, telling you I’m about to whoop your fat ass?”
Crunkilton framed the situation like this:
“You have a man high on meth; you have a man that’s not. You have a man that says, ‘I’m about to beat him down,’ and you’ve got a man that’s sitting in his recliner,” Crunkilton said. “You got a man that needs a place to stay – and he wasn’t the only one that Caleb opened up his house to.”
DNA evidence could neither confirm nor deny that Serio Jr. touched the gun. There were numerous unidentifiable DNA samples on the tip of the barrel, experts testified, and Crunkilton said this leaves open the possibility that Serio Jr. reached for it and connected.
While officers of all ranks testified to receiving training that will help them deal with high-stress situations, Crunkilton noted that Sarge received no such training. When Serio Jr. approached and appeared to threaten Sarge, Crunkilton said, Sarge panicked. He fired the gun, but only out of self-preservation.
“I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t reached for it,” Sarge said during a police interview.
Sarge added that he had “no clue” what happened in the moment the incident occurred, and that he wished he could take it all back. He said he regretted the way the situation unfolded.
“I’m not a cold-hearted man,” Sarge told detectives.
In the moments after he fired the gun, Sarge told police he froze. Unlike law enforcement officers, who receive training on how to respond during traumatic situations, Sarge was left unprepared to deal with a crisis, Crunkilton said. His actions, odd as they may seem, were a result of this stress.
“They don’t teach you in high school how to respond to a dead person …” Crunkilton told the jury.
He added that everyone responds differently to trauma, and reminded the jury that Sarge was not on trial for failing to call 911.
“We think we know how we will respond, until it happens …” Crunkilton continued. “Human mind’s a funny thing. We always talk about freedom of choice, and that’s absolutely true, except the problem is, you’re free to choose how your brain tells you to.
“When it spasms and is going off, and you do not have the training to rise above it, you’re at the mercy of it.”
Furthermore, the defense emphasized the way Sarge complied with the investigation. After initially arriving at the wrong house, 606 N. Sandusky St., officers testified that Sarge called them over. He immediately confessed to shooting Serio Jr., and disclosed the location of the body and the weapon.
“This isn’t a man who’s trying to hide anything,” Crunkilton told the jury.
Sarge offered to give two police interviews during his first 12 hours in custody. Everything he said during those interviews was proven factual through physical evidence, Crunkilton added. But when Sarge told officers Serio Jr. had threatened him, and that he was simply acting in self-defense, they didn’t believe him.
“You wonder why the man was scared to call the police? Because they didn’t believe him. Upon coming, they didn’t believe him. The moment he said, ‘I shot him,’ he gets put in cuffs. And he’s never been released from them,” Crunkilton told the jury.
“That’s why you don’t call 911 … His worst fear was true. His hesitation was factually correct. And you can tell yourself, ‘Oh, well if he had called right away, maybe they would have believed him more.’ Why? At the specific moment that he said, ‘I shot him,’ they didn’t know anything and he’s been in cuffs ever since.”
Crunkilton criticized certain aspects of the police department’s investigation, including the fact that Daniels – the woman who Serio Jr. texted immediately before his death, threatening to kill Sarge – was never contacted. Crunkilton claimed the investigation was partially about “checking the boxes” to ensure charges and evidence against Sarge, instead of fully working both sides of the case.
“The evidence is consistent with everything that (Sarge) stated. And if everything the man stated that could be verified by independent facts turned out to be true, why don’t we believe him on this thing? Because we choose not to,” Crunkilton said.
“We are consciously choosing not to believe him, and that ain’t the way the system works. They first have to prove that he purposely murdered somebody. Then they have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it was not self defense. He does not have to prove to you that it was, because that’s the whole essence of the American system …
“It goes to show why someone’s afraid to call the police. Because if they choose not to believe me, and they won’t go investigate what it is that I said happened, how the hell am I supposed to prove that I didn’t do it?”
Despite his transparency, Crunkilton said Sarge was second-guessed by law enforcement. Serio Jr.’s death was tragic, Crunkilton said, but it did not constitute murder. He reminded the jury of the threshold for conviction.
“Never forget that ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ means exactly what it says …” Crunkilton said. “You have to be firmly convinced that (Sarge) did not act in self-defense. And it’s just not there.”
What’s next
After six hours of deliberation, the jury decided unanimously to convict Sarge.
He’ll be sentenced by Judge Richard Wetzel on April 8 at 9 a.m. Sarge is facing 18 years to life in prison, McConville said, as he was also found guilty of the firearm specification and the tampering with evidence charge.
While the defense could not be reached for comment after the trial, McConville said he was satisfied with the outcome.
“I think it was a justified verdict, given the fact that there was so much evidence that Caleb Sarge intended to dispose of John Serio Jr.’s body, and that he was trying to recruit others to help him do it,” McConville said Friday. “This behavior was inconsistent with somebody who had killed someone in justifiable self-defense.”
