Juror in Topeka triple murder case explains several factors that led to reasonable doubt

No DNA from Yanez Sanford was found in the southwest Topeka apartment where a man, a woman and an unborn child were fatally shot in 2016, his defense attorneys stressed.

The inability of police and prosecutors to effectively put Sanford at the scene was among reasons a jury on May 17 found him "not guilty" of those murders, a member of that jury told The Capital-Journal this past week.

"The law says you have to prove someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to convict them, and we had plenty of reasonable doubt," he said. "We followed the law."

The juror contacted The Capital-Journal offering to help clarify facts regarding the case.

A Shawnee County District Court jury concluded May 17 that reasonable doubt existed to believe Sanford, 41, played a role in the shooting deaths of 23-year-old Dominique Ray, 20-year-old Camrah Trotter and Trotter's unborn daughter at Fairlawn Greens Apartments, 5235 S.W. 20th Terrace.

The Capital-Journal isn't publishing the juror's name at his request for safety reasons. Law enforcement officers escorted jurors to their cars.

What did prosecutors say happened?

The verdict ended a 10-day trial in which prosecutors said a man carrying a gun pushed his way in after knocking on the door of the apartment where Ray and Trotter lived with Trotter's 4-year-old daughter, La'Miya Ryce.

The gunman and another man waited there with Trotter and La'Miya about two hours during the early morning of Aug. 7, 2016, then fatally shot Ray when he came to the door with his cousin, Jamontez Fulton, prosecutors said.

They said the two men chased and fired shots at Fulton, who got away away as Trotter called 911 from her apartment. One then returned to the apartment and fatally shot Trotter as she was on the phone.

La'Miya said she watched as Ray and Trotter were killed.

What did jurors think?

The juror said when deliberations began during the late afternoon of May 16, he was among eight jurors who supported finding Sanford "not guilty." Four supported convicting him. Jurors deliberated about an hour that day.

By the following morning, 10 jury members supported acquittal and two favored conviction, the juror said.

The jury revealed just before 1 p.m. May 17 that it had reached a unanimous verdict.

Who were the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys?

District Attorney Mike Kagay's office was represented at the trial by senior deputy district attorney Keith Henderson and Dan Dunbar, a retired Shawnee County chief deputy district attorney working as a special prosecutor.

Peter Conley and Emily Barclay, senior assistant capital defenders for the state's Death Penalty Defense Unit, represented Sanford.

Shawnee County District Court Judge Bill Ossmann presided.

What did the jurors think of what the surviving witnesses said?

Fulton and La'Miya, who was then 4 years old and is now 12, each identified Sanford at trial as being one of the killers.

But jury members didn't consider either to be a credible witness, the juror said.

Jurors found various inconsistencies between the statements La'Miya gave police at ages 4 and 8, then made in court during the trial, he said.

The juror said Fulton testified at trial that he vividly remembered Sanford because of his eyes, yet Fulton had told police early on in the investigation that the gunman may have been wearing sunglasses.

Why weren't jurors convinced Trotter had been raped?

Prosecutors stressed that a vaginal swab collected from Trotter's body contained seminal fluid, which DNA testing proved was Sanford’s. They alleged Sanford raped Trotter while waiting for Ray to arrive at their apartment.

Sanford's attorneys said DNA can remain in the body a week, and suggested Sanford and Trotter had consensual sex in the week before she died. Prosecutors countered that DNA can remain in the body only two or three days.

The juror noted that Sanford lived in Independence, Missouri, while Trotter commuted from Topeka to work during the last week of her life in Johnson County.

The reasonably close proximity of those locations to each other, combined with the lack of DNA from Sanford in Trotter’s apartment, gave jurors reason to question prosecutors’ assertion that Sanford raped Trotter there, he said.

Sanford exercised his constitutional right not to testify at the trial. Jurors were told they were not allowed to hold that against him.

Why did jurors discuss the possibility that a 'gang war' was involved?

Another reason behind the decision to acquit was the inability by police and prosecutors to establish a solid link between Sanford and the people involved, aside from the seminal fluid taken from Trotter's body, the juror said.

He said jurors thought police neglected to interview many people they should have and didn't pursue various available avenues of investigation, including examining social media accounts and cell phone records of people involved and checking Kansas Turnpike records or video to see if they showed Sanford drove to Topeka that night.

"There were a lot of things that should have been followed up on that weren't," the juror said.

He suggested Topeka police should have more thoroughly investigated some "alternative suspects" who may have committed the killings as part of a gang war.

Defense attorneys shared names of men they said may have killed Ray to avenge the Feb. 14, 2016, Topeka shooting death of Del Juan Patton, whom they said was Trotter's boyfriend before Ray became her boyfriend.

Prosecutors acknowledged Ray was among people suspected of killing Patton, though no arrests have been made in that case. They suggested Sanford killed Ray to avenge Patton's death.

But the juror said while Sanford and Patton were distantly related to each other by marriage, jury members didn't see that as solidly connecting Sanford to the case.

The juror added that jury members looked at whether a link may have existed between Sanford and one of the alternative suspects, known as "Dalt."

Prosecutors alleged Sanford said the name "Dalt" during a recorded phone call from the jail in Jackson County Missouri.

But the juror said jury members, after listening to the recording four or five times, realized Sanford had instead said "dawg," a street term commonly used to refer to a friend.

What about the missing body camera videos?

Sanford's attorneys suggested he couldn't get a fair trial because 30 Axon body camera videos Topeka police took while investigating the case in 2016 had been inadvertently destroyed.

A judge ordered the body camera videos and other evidence preserved in February 2021. Topeka police were then taken by surprise when the videos were destroyed later that year at the end of a planned five-year retention period.

The juror said he didn't know how the presence of those videos may have affected the case if they'd been preserved, but their absence gave jurors one more reason for reasonable doubt.

Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Juror in Topeka triple murder case explains reasonable doubt factors