![]() The case of Aavielle Wakefield is still open.įrom the list of evidence the state handed over to the defense, I can roughly piece together the swatches of information that led to Da'Von's arrest. I think they said no out of concern for Da'Von. Da'Von's attorneys would not talk to me for this story. I don't know what they told Da'Von about why he was being released. I don't know what evidence Da'Von's attorneys did or didn't show him. ![]() So there you are in the county jail, only an elevator ride away from the courtroom and the prosecutor's office, but all you have is a cloudy porthole to help you decipher what's going on upstairs. Maybe your assigned attorney's checking in briefly, but that's about it. Because their contact with the outside world, with the workings of the court, is stymied by multiple layers of interference, like a frustrating game of telephone. Many of the defendants I talked to in Cleveland, especially the ones who are waiting in jail-I often knew more about what was going on with their cases than they did, just from taking a quick look at the public records. But once I thought about it, it made sense why it would make no sense. He started at the beginning, right after Thanksgiving 2015. So while I did meet the homicide detectives in charge of Aavielle Wakefield's case, I could not ask them, how much did you know about Da'Von Holmes before you arrested him? ![]() Which is too bad, because Cleveland has some interesting leaders with ideas and lots to say about their city-just not to me. I've, frankly, never encountered a city government with a jaw locked up tighter than Cleveland's. In fact, no Cleveland officials-no police officials, no one from the mayor's office-would agree to an on-the-record interview for this series. The detectives weren't allowed to talk to me. He agreed right away, as if he'd been waiting for someone to come along and ask, what the heck happened? I was not able to ask the police what the heck happened. I had a speech in my head about why he should talk to me, but there was no need. When I knocked on his door, he'd only been out of jail for a couple of months. What happened? Why did the police think it was Da'Von in the first place? And what happened over the course of that year to make the state let him go? So what happened? After all that effort, wrong guy. That's why I'd looked into this case, into all these awful shootings from the fall of 2015, because I figured if any homicides were going to get the full menu of police and prosecution resources, it would be these.Įveryone wants to solve the case of the five-month-old baby. But for now, he was free.Īavielle's death, her unassailable innocence-as one of the 911 operators said that day, a baby, baby, killed in her car seat-it was the kind of incident that makes a city stop arguing for a bit over what the criminal justice system is doing right, and what it's doing wrong, so that everyone seemed to line up, fired up to find justice for Aavielle. They got the wrong guy.ĭa'Von Holmes had been quietly released from the Cuyahoga County Jail, the charges against him dismissed without prejudice, which means the county could try to reindict him in future. Wait, what? He quickly said, it's a horrible case, but my guy didn't do it. Oh, really? What's the case? A murder case-a baby. I was tagging along with an attorney I'd been interviewing, and he saw a friend, and he said, hey, how's it going? And the friend, also a defense attorney, was beaming. A couple days later, another judge would raise it to $2 million.Ī year after that second press conference, almost to the day, I happened to be at a holiday party at a restaurant downtown. ![]() Holmes has a history of violence as a juvenile." He asks for a million-dollar bond. At Da'Von's first court appearance, the prosecutor noted that, quote, "Mr. It was as if one big law enforcement fist were pounding on the public podium-this should not be happening in our city, and we got to do something about it. And another attempted murder and felonious assault for a bystander. Three more attempted murders and three more felonious assaults for the other passengers in the car that day, who miraculously were unhurt. The indictment against him was robust-two counts of aggravated murder, plus one regular murder-that was for the baby. ![]()
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