TOPEKA (KSNT) - Seven witnesses took the stand Thursday, marking the final day of testimony in a trial for the murder of a Washburn University football player.
Simmons, a Washburn football player, was shot to death in April 2019 while at a house party celebrating his teammate Corey Ballentine's drafting to the NFL. Already jailed after being accused of another crime, Topeka Police Department investigators tied Francisco Mendez to the shooting that July.
KSNT News has had a reporter in the courtroom following the duration of the jury trial, and five witnesses took the stand for the defense Thursday. Two of them, partygoers, described getting into altercations with Simmons previously the night of the house party. One of them said they called Topeka police's non-emergency line about an argument between Simmons and his girlfriend. Another witness, a TPD detective, told the court that police were originally called to a report that night of a shirtless Black man harassing a white woman, rather than a shooting.
Prosecutors countered with two witnesses of their own. Another TPD detective took the stand and challenged a witness testimony from the previous day. Washburn student Emily Munyer told the court Wednesday that she was outside, saw a car pull up to the party, and then went inside. Unlike others' accounts, Munyer said there was a long period of time, during which she went back inside and got ready to leave before she heard gunshots.
“I continued talking with the boys briefly and I went back inside to find my friends and figure out when we were leaving,” Munyer said.
The prosecution then played her original recorded interview, where she told detectives she was not outside when the car showed up.
The trial for Dwane Simmons' murder has been long coming, seeing some delays with requests from Mendez's attorney such as moving the trial to another venue, Mendez asking for a new attorney, and also court shutdowns from the pandemic. Even with a summer 2021 drop-in COVID-19 cases, the Shawnee County District Court again halted dockets for all proceedings except jury trials towards the end of the year.
With Shawnee County COVID-19 cases in the single digits since March 16, the jury trial for Mendez began on the same day. Ballentine took the stand on March 17 to testify about what happened to his best friend, describing a car pulling up to their house party and asking questions before driving away and shooting at them. He identified Mendez as the car's driver from a photo lineup.
"They pulled off, I want to say maybe 20 feet, and they stopped, and then they started shooting,” Ballentine said. "I got shot in my butt cheek, my right butt cheek and then it hit me in my pelvic bone.”
Along with Munyer giving her conflicting accounts of what happened on the stand, Wednesday saw testimony from another Washburn student and a private investigator called by the defense. The other student, Ryanna Serrone-Brown, said outside the party, she saw a Black man start firing a gun of his own across the street after the shooting started.
After the prosecution countered Munyer's testimony, they rested at 10:45 a.m. and the jury went into recess until 1 p.m. The court will give them their jury instructions and then hear closing arguments.
View KSNT News' timeline of events in the Simmons murder investigation below. Click on the links below the pictures to view previous stories as the case developed:
