ELYRIA — Markus Martin shook his head slowly as verdicts finding him guilty of murder, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, felonious assault, burglary and aggravated riot were read in court Friday evening.
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Markus Martin is found guilty in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on Oct. 23. STEVE MANHEIM/CHRONICLE
Martin, 27, faces a minimum sentence of 15 years to life from the verdicts, which a jury returned following roughly five hours of deliberation. The jurors cleared Martin of an additional charge of aggravated murder that carried a potentially even more severe sentence.
Defense attorney Anthony Baker said after the verdicts that it appeared to him jurors believed Martin was responsible for the July 2014 shooting death of Davion Strupe, even though his client didn’t pull the trigger.
“I guess the jury believed he was complicit, that he controlled the actions of someone else,” Baker said.
Throughout the trial and during closing arguments earlier in the day, prosecutors argued that Martin was just as responsible as Tristen Belfiore, the 17-year-old who fired six of seven shots at Strupe as he fled a beating from a large group of people on Garden Street in Elyria.
“He doesn’t get to escape just because he didn’t actually have the gun in his hand,” Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Laura Dezort said in her closing.
Strupe was hit once in the back andmanaged to stagger a short distance before collapsing from his fatal injuries.
Prosecutors said Strupe became a target because Martin’s brother, Dean Martin Jr., who also faces charges in the case, was upset that Strupe was selling drugs on his turf. He then allegedly concocted a false story about Strupe trying to break into the home where his child was to agitate friends and family members.
A large group of people, whom prosecutors have described as a “mob,” went looking for Strupe and initially attacked another man who they mistook for him. The group eventually found Strupe in the apartment of Misty Ellis, the mother of Strupe’s child, and demanded that he be sent outside.
Prosecutors said that it wasn’t until Todd Wells arrived at the scene and pushed his way past Ellis that Markus Martin and others entered the apartment and forced Strupe outside.
Martin struck Strupe in the head with a large paving stone that broke apart and others picked up the pieces and hit the struggling Strupe with them. Strupe was also beaten with a plastic chair, a child’s scooter in addition to being punched, kicked and stomped by those in the crowd, prosecutors said.
“He was beaten from head to toe,” Assistant County Prosecutor Tony Cillo said. “He fought, but he was one man against an army.”
Strupe eventually managed to break free and was running from the scene when Martin ordered Belfiore to fire, prosecutors said.
Baker said there wasn’t any proof Belfiore, who has already pleaded guilty to murder and other charges in the case, heard Martin tell him to shoot and that even if he did, that didn’t mean Belfiore listened.
“Who has the power? The person who’s shooting off his mouth or the person shooting the gun?” Baker asked jurors as he urged them to acquit his client.
County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi scheduled sentencing for Monday.
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