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Thread: Joshua Young Found Not Guilty in 2011 KY Slaying of Trey Zwicker

  1. #21
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    Protest held in hopes of Josh Young's release

    Supporters of a teenager charged in his stepbrother's murder protested outside of the Youth Detention Center Sunday.

    Around a dozen of Josh Young's friends and family said they want Young to be released from the center following a guilty plea entered by Young's father, Josh Gouker, in the murder of his stepson Trey Zwicker, 14, on Friday.

    Young's Uncle, Rodney Gunter, said the group chose to protest on Mother's Day, "In support of my baby sister my nephew and we just want him home."

    Susan Stoneburner, Young's foster mother said, "Since the age of 15 he's been missing his life and now he's 17 and we're ready for him to enjoy some life."

    The penalty for murder in Kentucky is 20 to 50 years in prison or life with the possibility of parole in 20 years. Gouker will learn his sentence in late July, the same day Young's murder trial is scheduled to start.

    http://www.wave3.com/story/22230181/...ld-in-hopes-of
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  2. #22
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    Inside the Joshua Young trial: Day 1

    Jury selection ended Monday in the first day of Joshua Young's trial.

    The 17-year-old, who wore khaki pants, a blue vest and white-collared shirt in court, is accused of being complicit to the murder of his 14-year-old stepbrother, Trey Zwicker, in May of 2011.

    Young's father, Joshua Gouker, pleaded guilty to Zwicker's murder. He was sentenced to life in prison on Friday.

    Twenty-seven prospective jurors were brought up to the judge's bench Monday afternoon for individual voir dire.

    Later, Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Elizabeth Jones Brown asked prospective jurors if they ever served on a jury, whether they testified in court, whether they had been victims to a crime and whether they or a close friend had ever been convicted of a crime.

    Before recessing for the day, the judge and attorneys held a suppression hearing to determine what evidence can be heard in trial. The defense wants to keep out statements Young made to police.

    Twelve jurors plus three alternates will decide Young's fate. Several jurors were dismissed Monday morning due to hardship.

    Opening statements are expected to begin later this week. Circuit Court Judge Barry Willett told potential jurors he anticipates the trial to last two weeks.

    Young is also charged with complicity to tampering with evidence. Jury selection resumes at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

    http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/07...rters-notebook
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  3. #23
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    Victim's mother testifies in Josh Young's trial



    The mother of a teenage boy who was beaten to death in May 2011 testified in a Louisville, Kentucky, courtroom Thursday about how she became suspicious that her husband killed her son.

    However, Amanda McFarland didn't offer any details about how her 17-year-old stepson, Joshua Young, may have been involved in her son Trey Zwicker's murder.

    Young is on trial for complicity to murder and tampering with evidence for his alleged role in Zwicker's death.

    McFarland's then-husband, Josh Gouker, pleaded guilty to murder, and was sentenced to life in prison July 26. Prosecutors are expected to call him to the stand Friday.

    “After Trey had died I locked his room and I took to my bedroom his pillow and some clothes that still smelled like him,” said a composed McFarland. “Josh Gouker told me not to bring my dead son to bed with me every night. So that was another extremely alarming situation that caused a lot of doubt. ”

    McFarland said was she intimate with Gouker the night Zwicker died, and that Gouker spent that night in her bed.

    “I questioned Josh Gouker once about if there was any possibility that he got out of that bad that night and not woke me up. He became extremely angry that I would doubt him,” McFarland said.

    Gouker’s anger would routinely turn into violence, according to McFarland. She said that in December 2010, she aborted Gouker’s baby after he had become violent. McFarland also said that Gouker became enraged when she confronted him about a phone conversation she'd overheard between him and his cousin Cassie Gouker. During that phone conversation, she said she heard Gouker tell his cousin that McFarland was “expendable.”

    During his opening statement, defense attorney Peter Schuler accused Josh Gouker of having a sexual affair with his cousin during his marriage to McFarland.

    Earlier Thursday, Zwicker’s uncle Jereme McFarland testified that he saw Young at Zwicker's funeral and described his behavior there as "blank, null and void." He said Young did not cry at the funeral.

    http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/08...h-youngs-trial
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  4. #24
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    Witness says Josh Young confessed to crime

    For the first time, a witness in the Joshua Young murder trial said Young confessed to killing 14-year-old Terrence "Trey" Zwicker.

    On Friday, Jahaira Friend testified about Joshua Gouker, Young's father, who was sentenced to life in prison for Zwicker's murder last week. Jahaira Friend, says she and a friend went with Gouker and Young to Tennessee to go swimming at a hotel. She claims that Gouker had a gun and later forced a woman to drive them to Alabama, before police caught up to them.

    She said during the trip to Alabama with Gouker and his son, Joshua Young confessed to the crime.

    Friend told jurors that "Josh Gouker had asked me if I knew who killed Trey, and I said, 'No.' And he said, 'Little Josh did.' And I looked at Little Josh and I said, 'You killed Trey?' And he said, 'Yeah.'"

    Friend also told the jury that she didn't feel safe with Gouker and Young.

    "I was just as scared of Josh Young as I was of Josh Gouker," she says.

    Earlier on Friday, the judge allowed a medical expert to be called out of order. Defense attorneys called Dr. George Nichols, a former chief medical examiner from Kentucky.

    Nichols said, based on Zwicker's injuries, it is possible that Trey Zwicker could have been killed by one person. As graphic photos were shown in court, Young became emotional, putting his head into his hand as he was consoled by a social worker.

    It was the first time Young has shown emotion in the courtroom.
    Dr. Nichols told the jury based it's unlikely an initial strike killed Zwicker, but it could have knocked him unconscious. He says Zwicker died of traumatic brain injury and had at leave five proven injuries to the head, back, and neck.

    He says he can't tell how many times he was beaten however.

    "What's the maximum number of strikes you can determine. How many more than 5. Could there have been 20, 15, the defense attorney asked.

    "More than enough is the answer," says Dr. George Nichols.

    Nichols also testified that it doesn't appear from the injuries that a baseball bat was used on Zwicker. He says it was an object that was rod-like, but in his opinion, not a bat. It was suggested early on in the investigation that a bat was used.

    http://www.wdrb.com/story/23028892/m...-by-one-person
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  5. #25
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    Joshua Gouker: Killing 14-year-old stepson 'just felt right'

    In defiant, obscene and sometimes startling testimony Monday, convicted murderer Joshua Gouker testified that he killed his 14-year-old stepson on May 11, 2011, by beating him to death with a pipe, saying “it just felt right.”

    But Gouker told a Jefferson County jury that his son, Joshua Young, had no involvement in the slaying of Trey Zwicker.

    “Nobody helped me,” Gouker said.

    Testifying during the second week of 17-year-old Joshua Young’s murder trial, Gouker said he was angry that Trey’s mother had aborted his child. “I know it sounds monstrous ... but if we were in the Old Testament, it would be the same thing.”

    Gouker, who is serving life in prison for Trey’s murder, said he took the boy to a creek behind Liberty High School on East Indian Trail to confront him about stealing a lighter and a plate of food, then killed him with a pipe that he rinsed in the creek.

    But he admitted under questioning from prosecutors that he initially told police that Young had confessed to killing Trey with a baseball bat, saying his son hated Trey.

    And Cassie Gouker, Joshua Gouker neighbor and cousin and sometimes lover, testified that Young woke her up after the murder, about 1:30 a.m., saying he killed Trey and needed her to drive him somewhere to get rid of a blood-stained baseball bat and clothing.

    Gouker said she didn’t believe Young — even after Joshua Gouker came back with Young and repeated the story..

    “They had a twisted sense of humor,” she testified, adding, however, that she ended up driving Young to a garbage bin that night but didn’t talk to him about the alleged murder. She was not charged because of her assistance in the case.

    Last week, Trey’s mother, Amanda McFarland, said Joshua Gouker was with her at least until she fell asleep after 1:30 a.m. after the murder. She said Gouker went to sleep before her and she could hear him snoring.

    But on Monday, Josh Gouker testified that McFarland fell asleep first and he went out to the living room to play video games before taking Trey to the creek to confront him.

    He got angry at Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Erin White, saying he has repeatedly told the story of how he killed Trey after initially lying to police and blaming his son.

    “I’ve admitted everything I’ve done. I’ve been sentenced for it, life in prison, yet here I am, going over this same ... story,” he said, sometimes angry and cursing during his testimony, other times simply nodding his head to answer questions.

    Gouker testified he and Trey smoked marijuana together at the creek and that Trey picked up a pipe and began to hit it against a tree. When Gouker told the teen he would treat him like a man the next time he stole from him, Gouker said Trey brought up his father, Terry Zwicker.

    White then asked Gouker if he got angry and punched Trey in the face, knocked him down and pulled the pipe out of the teen’s hand before beating him to death.

    “That’s a good version,” Gouker responded.

    When White later asked for specifics about the murder, Gouker said: “You’re sadistic. You want to hear this?” He offered few details. At one point he said it “was a blur.”

    Gouker said he told several family members to tell police that Young had committed the murder.

    “How do you not see that this late in the game?” Gouker asked White. And he said the lead detective in the case, Detective Scott Russ, has believed his lies since the beginning, saying Russ couldn’t find breasts in a strip club.

    When Gouker asked Cassie Gouker to tell the police the truth about who killed Trey, she replied, “You did, right?" according to a recording played to the jury of a phone call Russ made while Joshua Gouker was present.

    But Josh Gouker continuing to press her on the telephone, telling her the police “know everything,” and she needed to tell the truth.

    “Your loyalty lies with me, right?” Gouker said. “This is Big Josh; tell the truth. Who killed Trey?"

    “You did, right?” Cassie Gouker replied. “I don't know.”

    Eventually, Cassie Gouker told Russ that Young was responsible for the murder. She testified that she first told police Gouker had killed Trey because that’s what he told her to do.

    Under cross-examination, Cassie Gouker admitted that Josh Gouker had talking about McFarland getting an abortion and told her “an eye for an eye” before Trey’s death. She said he never mentioned killing Trey.

    Also Monday, a woman who traveled with Young and Gouker to Alabama after Trey was killed testified that Young told her on the trip that he had beaten his stepbrother to death.

    “I beat the hell out of him,” Angelic Burkhead said Young told her.

    Under cross-examination, the defense played a phone call where Russ and Gouker called Burkhead and she repeatedly denied that Young had confessed to her.

    Gouker told her to tell the truth over and over and, eventually, Burkhead sobbed and said Josh was the killer.

    Defense attorneys have said several people who will testify for the prosecution who have no credibility, that Gouker controlled witnesses, some of whom wouldn’t talk to police without his permission.

    http://www.courier-journal.com/artic...n-Trey-Zwicker
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  6. #26
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    I caught some of Gouker's testimony on HLN yesterday. He's a douche!
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #27
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    Closings planned for Friday in Young murder case

    Jurors in the Josh Young murder trial will hear closing arguments and begin deliberations Friday.

    Young did not take the stand to defend himself.

    His attorneys took only about 20 minutes to put on their case.

    Click for Thursday's live updates and trial archive


    They did, however, call two witnesses earlier in the trial due to schedules, including their medical expert.

    Day seven of testimony was brief, just four witnesses and little cross-examination.

    Young's aunt took the stand and described the then-15-year-old as distraught at his stepbrother's funeral.

    "He was very sad. Held his head low and teary-eyed," said Young's aunt, Cynthia Gouker. "I was right beside him."

    That was in direct opposition to a prosecution witness, who told the court Young showed no emotion over Trey Zwicker's death.

    Police found Zwicker face down in a ditch behind Liberty High School on May 11, 2011, just a couple of hundred yards from the home he shared with his mother, Young, and Young's father, Josh Gouker.

    Read more: http://www.wlky.com/news/local-news/...#ixzz2bTm9FZ9c
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  8. #28
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    Verdict Reached

    Jury is having Pizza and will deliver the verdict to the court when they are done.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #29
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    Not Guilty.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #30
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    Joshua Young not guilty of murdering stepbrother

    A Jefferson Circuit Court jury on Friday found 17-year-old Joshua Young not guilty of brutally beating to death his 14-year-old stepbrother, Trey Zwicker, in May 2011.

    The jury of eight women and four men deliberated about nine hours before returning the not guilty verdict on a charge of complicity to murder and not guilty on one count of tampering with physical evidence.

    Shortly after reading the verdict, Judge Barry Willett said the case was dismissed and that Young would be released from custody. The young defendant was beaming after the verdict was read. Trey’s mother hung her head and his weaping family left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.

    Before the verdict, jurors watched both Young’s interviews with police, in which he denied any involvement, and the testimony of his father, Joshua Gouker, who pleaded guilty to killing Trey and claims he acted alone.

    http://www.courier-journal.com/artic...ng-stepbrother
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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