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Two girls who were 17 when Jeffrey Brentlinger was slain Nov. 24 in his home will have forensic psychiatric evaluations at Dayton Forensic in the next month.
It is part of an ongoing process in the Logan County Family Courts to determine whether or not Tatianna Freeman and Jasmine D. Lewis, both of Lima, will be transferred to adult court to face charges of complicity to murder, complicity to first-degree felony aggravated robbery and complicity to first-degree felony aggravated burglary.
Judge Kim Kellogg-Martin ordered the evaluations during a Monday hearing and included a competency portion for Jasmine, who turns 18 in October.
Freeman has already turned 18 and is on pace to complete her high school diploma, the court reports.
Judge Kellogg-Martin is moving ahead with the forensic evaluations even though the Ohio Supreme Court has placed a stay on an earlier decision that eliminated automatic bind over to adult courts for juveniles when the cases involve murders.
If the court reverses the decision, the teens would automatically be bound over to the Common Pleas Court to be tried as adults.
Logan County Prosecutor Eric Stewart said the evaluations would be used regardless.
It will take about a month for a report once the girls are interviewed, Mr. Stewart said.
The girls were among five who targeted Mr. Brentlinger for robbery.
Marquevous E. Watkins, 21, of Lima, entered a plea of guilty on April 10 to murder with the specification he used a gun. He will be sentenced at 1:45 p.m. May 15.
The defendant faces a mandatory three-year sentence for using a gun and a minimum of 15 years of the life sentence.
That means he will have to serve 18 years before his first parole hearing.
In exchange for his plea, the Logan County Prosecutor’s Office agreed to drop first-degree aggravated robbery and aggravated assault charges.
Zachariah A. Huddleston, 22, of Lima, faces trial July 25 for murder, first-degree felony aggravated robbery and first-degree felony aggravated burglary.
The driver, Alexus E. Walton, 19, also of Lima, has been charged with complicity to murder, complicity to first-degree felony aggravated robbery and complicity to first-degree felony aggravated burglary.
Her trial is set for Aug. 22.
Prosecutors allege the group traveled to Logan County Nov. 24 on the pretense Lewis and Freeman would engage in a sex with the victim.
Instead, at the time, Freeman and Lewis delayed the act, waiting on the two men to barge into Mr. Brentlinger’s 6498 Township Road 127, Zanesfield, home and rob him.
Unbeknownst to the girls and the men, Mr. Brentlinger had set up a laptop computer disguised as a box on a closet shelf to record his escapades. It captured the moments up to his death.
Assistant Prosecutor Dan Houston, reading the statement of facts, said the victim was shot twice, once in the upper thigh allegedly by Huddleston and once in the chest by Watkins.