LIMA — Testimony got underway Tuesday in Allen County Common Pleas Court for a Lima woman accused of firing her handgun through the wall of a residence along Brower Road nearly 18 months earlier.
Julia Slayton, 35, is charged with a second-degree felony count of discharging a weapon into a habitation or a school safety zone. Jurors heard from the woman whose home the bullet entered, along with two members of the Lima Police Department who responded to 911 calls and reportedly found the woman holding a handgun upon arriving at the scene of the shooting.
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Anthony Miller told jurors that ballistics tests performed by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation proved the bullet that entered the residence occupied by Jennifer Chapin at 1021 Brower Road on Sept. 4, 2018, was fired by the weapon police found in possession of Slayton that day. A live cartridge found inside a nearby residence at Apartment A of the Willow Lake Apartments on Lake Circle Drive, where Slayton was staying with a friend, also matched both the weapon and the bullet found inside Chapin’s home.
Chapin took the witness stand Tuesday and described how she had laid down to take a late afternoon nap with her 2-year-old son on Sept. 4 when she heard a “big bang” and found a hole in her kitchen cabinet and what she believed to be a bullet on the kitchen floor. She called police, who responded immediately.
Dispatchers at the Lima Police Department had already been alerted to shots fired in the area by Sabrina Florence, who resided at 2150 Lake Circle Drive. She had called 911 because her granddaughter, who had been outside the apartment building, came inside and said a white female wearing a pink shirt “was out there shooting.”
Lima Police Department patrol officer Rachel Scott testified she and her patrol partner, Brittney Wyerick, responded to the Willow Lake Apartments and immediately “observed a female with a firearm in her hand” at the rear of the complex. Scott said the woman, identified in court as Slayton, was ordered to drop the gun “and she did so immediately.” Slayton was taken into custody.
Wyerick told jurors Slayton’s eyes were glassy and that the woman “seemed out of it.”
Testimony in the trial was slated to resume Wednesday morning.
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