http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070720/NEWS02/707200387
Article published Friday, July 20, 2007
COLD CASE VERDICT
Boyfriend sentenced for woman's '04 murder
( THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH ) |
For three years, Cori Key's family and friends have waited.
They waited for the man they believed killed the 26-year-old mother of two to be arrested and they waited to witness his trial for the crime.
Yesterday, after waiting nearly five hours for a Lucas County Common Pleas Court jury to deliberate, Ms. Key's family and friends finally were told the words they had so long desired to hear - Ms. Key's boyfriend, Damiene Boles, was guilty of murder.
This morning, they returned to court to witness Boles being sentenced to 15 years to life in prison by Judge James Jensen.
The judge called Boles "arrogant" and a "monster" before ordering him to prison. He also assessed a $15,000 fine, the maximum.
Boles will be eligible for parole in 15 years, when he will have to go before a parole board for a hearing. This morning, he once again denied that he was responsible for Ms. Key’s death.
The case against Boles, 35, was reopened in December, about 2 ½ years after the Ms. Key's body was found July, 31, 2004, beaten and stabbed in the running water of her shower.
Investigators with the county’s cold case unit arrested Boles soon after they reopened the case.
Ms. Key’s family and friends, who attended this week’s four-day trial everyday, said they were relieved to see Boles in prison.
After the verdict yesterday, Ms. Key's father, David, talked of the three years since he found his only daughter's body in her Oakwood Avenue home.
"It was difficult. I'm not going to sit here and say it was easy. It wasn't," Mr. Key said.
"He really don't know what he took, that's the sad part. He really don't know what he took," he said. "He thought she was just another girl … She was an angel."
Family and friends testified throughout the four-day trial that Ms. Key, who had a child with Boles, was afraid of him and was trying to leave the abusive and controlling relationship.
Prosecutors told jurors that although she tried, Boles was not going to let her go.
"The mindset of Damiene Boles was that if he wasn't go-ing to have her, nobody was going to have her," said Assistant County Prosecutor Andy Lastra, adding that the verdict proved that Boles wasn't going to have a life either.
Throughout the trial, several witnesses testified that they saw Boles at Ms. Key's house the night she was killed.
Two witnesses said that Boles warned them not to talk to police about what they knew.
Boles' defense team presented witnesses earlier in the day who testified that they saw him at a Monroe Street bar the night Ms. Key was murdered. A bouncer, a bartender, and the owner of the Blueprint Sportsbar and Lounge testified that they saw Boles the night of July 30.
None of the men could say exactly when he arrived or how long he was there.
In closing arguments, Tonya Carr, Boles' attorney, said her client admittedly had a rocky relationship with Ms. Key, but "that doesn't mean that Damiene killed her."
She pointed out that no forensic evidence pointed to Boles, and Ms. Key's home was in a "high-crime area."
After the verdict, defense attorney Don Cameron said he was disappointed by the decision and that his client plans to appeal. He called the situation a tragedy for both Ms. Key's family and for Boles.
"There was a lot of material," Mr. Cameron said of the state's case against his client.
"I think there were two levels of the state's evidence. There were the people who claim they saw Damiene at the scene, and there was also the level of the people who care about Cori and who knew of their relationship but nothing of the scene," he said.
"The connection is probably what the jury saw."
Assistant County Prosecutor Michael Bohner pointed out that Boles was the main person of interest in the 2004 police investigation but because of weaknesses in the case, he was not arrested.
He credited investigators in the county's cold-case unit for finally giving Ms. Key's family the resolution they had craved for so long.
"Do we wish we could have done it sooner? Yes. But justice was served today," he said.
Mr. Lastra added that Ms. Key's murder is exactly why the county has a cold-case unit, which was created to re-examine unsolved murder cases.
He said that although family members and investigators believed for several years that Boles was responsible for Ms. Key's death, it wasn't until a jury of 12 people announced his guilt that the case was finally closed.
"Whether it's two years, four years, or 40 years, this office is not going to rest until we get those cases solved," he said. "We're not going to forget about these cases."
Boles' supporters who attended the trial declined to comment after the verdict
