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Texting key to prosecution opening testimony in Oberlin murder case
OBERLIN, Kansas -- Anything you say or text can be used against you in a court of law.
Text messages that indicate escalating anger appear to contradict some recollections of and testimony regarding an evening in October 2011 when an Oberlin, Kansas, man was killed as he and his girlfriend slept off a night of drinking in a rural Decatur County home.
But the angriest text messages presented in court Tuesday were between 22-year-old Corey Cook, who died of a shotgun blast to the head, and another Oberlin man named Everett Urban -- NOT between Cook and Dylan Robert Coryell, the man accused of the premeditated, felony murder of Cook.
Coryell's trial started with jury selection Monday, and opening statements by the prosecution and defense Tuesday morning.
Prosecuting attorney Nicole Romine told 12 jurors and one alternate (six woman and seven men) that the one common denominator between Cook and Coryell is Sarah Campbell, who was involved with both men at the time of the shooting Oct. 15. But Everett Urban doesn't like Cook either, Romine said.
After two separate weekend parties of heavy drinking on both sides and many, "hateful" and "threatening" text messages, Corey Cook died of massive head injuries at Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, Nebraska on Oct. 17.
Defense attorney Justin Barrett told jurors that "the truth was" that Dylan Coryell "didn't care" that Sarah was seeing Corey Cook. " ... that another piece of the triangle was Jordan Urban," he said, "who likes guys to fight over her," and was someone who had had "a long-term relationship with Corey Cook."
"Everett wanted to fight with Corey Cook," Barrett said and he blamed Everett's texts "for putting all this in play."
The intention of the "drunk young men," Barrett said, was to get into a fist fight, "knock each other around a little bit." He concluded his statement, "A tragic death occurred, but there's no reason to find Dylan Coryell guilty of premeditated murder."
Coryell is charged with Count 1: Premeditated murder in the first degree, (felony murder in the first degree); Count 2: Aggravated battery, in which he is accused of harming Sarah Campbell; and Count 3: Aggravated burglary in which he is accused of entering a building with the intent to commit a felony.
Throughout the morning and afternoon Tuesday, the state called witnesses who testified that everyone at Saturday evening parties at Ryan McEvoy's house southeast of Oberlin and at Andrew Richards' house northeast of Oberlin was drinking, either beer, Royal Crown whiskey or Jägermeister, a German bitter liqueur.
Several party-goers had started drinking earlier in the day; others testified about "adequate supplies" of alcohol, "plenty for everyone," at both parties.
Young men and women testified to varying degrees of their own and their friends' inebriation -- slurred speech, "a little bit of a stagger" -- "pretty intoxicated," "drunk" or "getting there," "hammered." Someone testified to having drunk up to 17 beers during the afternoon and evening.
Some stopped for beer; others drank whatever was available at the parties; others passed around bottles. As drunk and drinking drivers and their passengers criss-crossed county roads between Oberlin and the two party houses, and from Selden to the party houses, beer cans got tossed out windows.
Telephone calls and text messages flew back and forth all afternoon and evening and even into the early morning hours of the next day -- some "just to get under" someone's skin, others to provoke a fight.
Everett Urban told Barrett he was "just being a smart ass" when he called Cook demeaning names and a coward, and bad-mouthed Cook's girlfriend, Sarah Campbell, in text messages. All at the same time that Urban testified he was "calming down" after Cook failed to show up for a one-on-one fist fight the two had scheduled at "the hog units" to settle an on-going dispute over Urban's wife, Jordan, with whom Cook had once had a relationship. Cook and Jordan kept in touch; Everett Urban didn't like that and had asked Cook to stop, Urban said.
Andrew Richards testified that Dylan Coryell left his party, and that Richards tried to call Coryell on his cellphone at 1:32 a.m., Oct. 16. Coryell didn't answer. Richards called Everett Urban at 1:33 a.m., and Everett answered, but he wasn't talking to Richards. "I heard Dylan and Everett talking. Dylan was saying, 'I'm going to jail,' and Everett was saying, 'Why'd you do that? Why'd you pull the trigger?' I could hear the panic in both their voices," Richards testified.
Testimony continues today at 9 a.m.