By Patrick Cooley
HUBBARD TOWNSHIP — A Hubbard Township woman accused of shooting and killing 15 year-old Robert Flynn of Masury on Aug. 10 was in Trumbull County Court on Tuesday where lawyers on both sides of the case said the evidence continues to be processed.
“Different discoveries (of evidence) have been exchanged,” said Chuck Murrow, who is prosecuting Karen Adams. 29 and her boyfriend, Paul Sundy Jr. 40, who is charged with tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice. “But there’s nothing I can really comment on.”
Adams is charged with murder, three counts of assault, and a count of tampering with evidence. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Murrow and Jerry Ingram, who is representing Adams, told Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Wyatt McKay that because they need time to process new evidence, her pre-trial hearing should be rescheduled.
“You have to be here on December 23,” McKay told Adams after both lawyers had agreed that would be an acceptable date.
“The discovery process is still unfolding,” Ingram said. “The prosecution and defense are making sure each side has everything they need.”
Both lawyers said a lot of new evidence is coming from investigators but neither said they could go into any specifics.
Sundy is scheduled to appear before Judge McKay on Jan. 17.
There could potentially be a change of plea before the case goes to trial, but Murrow said he doubts that will happen.
The shooting allegedly happened after a dispute between one of Flynn’s friends and Sundy, over a relationship with Sundy’s 16-year-old daughter.
Adams called 911 after midnight, telling the dispatcher that a group of teenagers had showed up at her house and was shooting at her and Sundy with BB guns. She said that she fired a “.22 varmint rifle” in the air to scare them off.
Three minutes later, a man who identified himself as John Ost called 911, and said that Flynn had been shot. He died later after being taken to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown and the Mahoning County coroner ruled the death a homicide.
Anthony Antonucci, who is from the same legal firm as Ingram, and had initially represented Adams, said in August that Adams shooting at the teenagers could have been justified in Ohio because of the Castle Doctrine that sometimes allows homeowners to defend themselves on their property.
Flynn’s family members have described him as a good kid, who hardly ever got into trouble, and probably only went along with Ost and the others that night because his friends were there.
He finished eighth grade in the spring, and would have been a freshman at Brookfield High School.
