Porter County prosecutors said during opening statements Tuesday that the murder of a Hobart man near a Portage Township pond last year after a hookup on a dating app was “about sex, money, murder,” while the defense questioned evidence collection at the crime scene and asked jurors “to keep an open mind.”
Domonic Brothers, 28, of Gary, is the first of two defendants to go on trial accused in the brutal 2023 beating and stabbing death of Hobart resident Derek Hartz, 35, after the three allegedly made arrangements to meet after connecting on an LGBTQ social networking app.
The trial of Brothers’ co-defendant Jawon Martin, who goes by Jada Monroe, 29, of Danville, Virginia, is scheduled to begin on Oct. 1 before Porter Superior Court Judge Michael Fish.
Both defendants are charged with two counts of murder, a Level 1 felony, and one count of robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, a Level 2 felony.
Before the jury was brought in, Porter County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer denied defense attorney Mark Chargualaf’s motion to exclude audio and video recordings of Brothers’ interviews with police while in custody in Hamilton County, Ohio.
Porter County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. William Marshall had requested in advance that an interview room equipped with audio and video recording capabilities be made available at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, but upon arrival was told the interview would have to be conducted in the jail where there were no recording capabilities.
Marshall and a colleague improvised, moving the interview to an adjacent law library where audio of the full interview was recorded but attempts at video recording using a cellphone failed. Porter County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Armando Salinas said that while legal standards require audio and video recording when police interrogate a felony defendant, there are good faith exceptions.
Clymer agreed. “I find that the officers, in good faith, attempted the recording with cellphones,” he said.
The jury was then brought in and Salinas spent the next 17 minutes laying the ground for the state’s argument that “this case is about sex, money, murder.” He said Brothers and Monroe used Grindr to advertise their intention of engaging with Hartz “as a duo,” but the lure of sex was simply a means to rob him of his car and money.
Phone and GPS records show arrangements were made early the morning of June 13, 2023, for Hartz to drive to Gary to pick up Brothers and Monroe. Salinas told the jury Hartz took the white Volkswagen sedan he shared with his mother to 11th Avenue in Gary at 7:39 a.m.
By 8:50 a.m. the three allegedly arrived at the Chustak Public Fishing Area at 331 W. 600 North in Valparaiso. By 9:38 a.m. those records show Hartz’s phone had left Chustak, and by 9:59 a.m. it was back in Gary.
Exactly an hour later Illinois fisherman David Riner arrived to do some fishing on his day off. He testified later in the morning that he walked up the narrow overgrown footpath about 100 to 150 yards north of the parking lot before coming upon the partially nude body of Hartz wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt and lying on a deflated air mattress.
Salinas told the jury that forensic pathologist John Feczko found 28 external injuries on Hartz’s body, including blunt force trauma to the head that caused a subdural hemorrhage to the brain.
He also told them that when Hartz’s body was removed from the scene police found a gold fanny pack with two IDs belonging to Jada Monroe. When police tracked Hartz’s and Monroe’s cellphones both were traced to 61st Avenue and Interstate 65, Salinas said.
Monroe’s phone was tracked to Michigan and then Ohio where police attempted to stop a white Volkswagen near Cincinnati around midnight. A crash ensued, Monroe attempted to run and was apprehended by police, as was Brothers, who also attempted to flee, Salinas said.
Salinas told the jury Brothers’ story has changed over time. Initially, Brothers, who appeared in court in women’s clothing, shoes, and lipstick, told police she wasn’t at the scene of the murder, Salinas said. Then, she amended her story to admit she was present, but didn’t participate in the attack, “however, she said she did see Jada Monroe raise a knife,” Salinas said of the first police interview.
By the second police interview, Salinas said Brothers admitted a plan to take money and his car from Hartz. “It’s at that point she states she picked up a brick and strikes Derek in the head,” Salinas said. “Jada goes ballistic and stabs him a bunch of times.”
Finally, Salinas told the jury a hair follicle found on the victim and a swab taken from him were 67 and 42,000 times more likely to belong to Brothers, respectively.
Chargualaf told the jury that Brothers’ bags were packed because she was preparing to move out of squalid living conditions on 11th Avenue and that Monroe alone showed up there in a white and silver sedan dangling keys in another housemate’s face.
“Miss Allison will tell you when she follows Jada into the bedroom she shared with Dominique, (Dominique) was on the bed, stark naked.”
He told the jury no swabs were taken of the victim’s head and chest wounds to analyze for DNA. “I would suggest that you strongly listen to that testimony,” he said of the forensic testimony expected Wednesday morning.
He added that the Grinder profile used to communicate with Hartz belonged to Monroe and pointed out that Brothers’ cellphone was nowhere near Hartz’s or Monroe’s during police tracking.
“I’ll ask you to keep an open mind,” he concluded. “Hear, see, observe all of the evidence and witnesses in this case.”
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
