CHARLESTON, W.Va. — “It’s a bloody, brutal, personal attack” was the way Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Gordon described the 2013 beating death of a Charleston man.
Opening statements were given Tuesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court for the trial of Miguel Quinones, 37, of Charleston, who previously pleaded guilty to first degree murder. He was charged in connection to the death of Kareem Hunter, 29, of Charleston.
“Kareem, at one point, is heard yelling ‘enough, enough,'” Gordon continued to tell a 12-member jury. “At some point, Kareem just doesn’t have the strength to fight anymore and he’s laying on the floor of Kelsey’s apartment.”
Deveron Patterson and Kelsey Legg have already been convicted in connection to Hunter’s death. Patterson was sentenced to life behind bars after pleading guilty to first degree murder. Legg admitted to being an accessory after the death and is now serving six to eight years in prison.
The beating took place inside Legg’s Marmet apartment in Sept. 2013. Gordon said it happened because Quinones thought Hunter was messing around with his girlfriend and that he might rob him. She said Quinones told Patterson, his girlfriend’s cousin, how he felt disrespected by Hunter and that he needed help to fight him. On Sept. 23, 2013, the two went to Legg’s apartment where Hunter was at.
A fight that lasted about 20-30 minutes, Gordon said, ended in blood stains throughout the apartment. Hunter’s legs, hands and mouth were duct taped and he was thrown into the trunk of Quinones’ blue/sliver Cadillac, while he was still alive, before the two men drove to Beckley to bury him in a shallow grave.
“By the time they got to Beckley, Kareem Hunter was dead,” Gordon said. Hunter’s body was found more than a month later.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors said they plan on using evidence from Quinones’ vehicle, phone records, witness testimony, photographs, videos and Hunter’s DNA found from the blood stains.
But Quinones’ attorney Robert Dunlap, of Beckley, told the jury in his opening statements that the evidence the state plans to use against his client won’t be enough.
“They’re going to place my clients car, one of the three cell phones on the account at the crime scene, but ladies and gentlemen that is not enough to convince you of murder,” he said.
The defense said they plan on proving to the jury that Quinones wasn’t in Marmet during the night Hunter was killed.
“I would like to tell you what really happened. I’d like to tell you I sat down with my client — he told me what really happened, so that I could tell you and it would give his family some solace and everyone would know and the community could start to heal,” Dunlap said. “We don’t live in that world because I don’t have a client that was there.”
Dunlap continued to tell jury members that his client did in fact help Legg clean her apartment after the murder, but that was it. He said this is a case where Quinones was hanging out with the wrong people — referring to Patterson and Legg.
“These two people are willing to frame him for murder so that they do not spend the remainder of their lives in jail,” Dunlap said.
Both Patterson and Legg are expected to testify against Quinones.
Dunlap said he’s afraid the prosecution will only tell jury members “partial truths” of what really happened.
Quinones’ trial has been postponed numerous times mainly because he’s complained about his court-appointed attorneys.