Ivan Brooks' third trial in 2019 Elyria slaying begins

For the third time in two years, a jury has been seated in Lorain County Common Pleas Court to hear evidence in the murder trial of Ivan Brooks, a Lorain man accused of shooting a romantic rival to death in Elyria in March 2019. Brooks, 39, is charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, improperly discharging a firearm at or on a habitation or school safety zone, tampering with evidence and multiple firearms and violent offender specifications in the murder of Terrence Taylor, 45, of Elyria. Brooks has pleaded not guilty to all of those charges. Judge Melissa Kobasher is hearing the case for a second time. On Monday, a jury was selected, opening statements were given and one witness gave testimony for the prosecution. The case resumes today. Elyria police and the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office allege that Brooks was jealous that Taylor was dating Byanka Tavarez, Brooks' ex-girlfriend and mother of two of his children, while Brooks was in prison on other charges. They claim Brooks got out of prison, tried to win Tavarez back, then ambushed, shot and killed Taylor inside the front door of Taylor's home on Broad Street in Elyria early on the morning of March 19, 2019. Tavarez told responding Elyria police officers that it was Brooks who shot Taylor. Elyria and Lorain police officers tracked Brooks to Lorain, but he fled the city and state and was on the run for nine days before turning himself in to federal authorities in Cincinnati. Brooks has been held on bond in the Lorain County Jail for more than four years since. His current bond is $750,000 cash. The defense claims Elyria police didn't fully investigate the possibility that someone else shot Taylor, a convicted drug trafficker who was free on bond on felony drug charges and wearing an ankle monitor when he was killed. The defense also produced two alibi witnesses who claimed Brooks was in Lorain all night the night of the murder drinking with friends and sitting in his white BMW SUV with a woman he had only recently met, listening to music and eating fast food. Assistant County Prosecutors Matt Kern and Chris Pierre are handling the case for the state. Brooks is represented by defense attorneys Giovanna Scaletta-Bremke and Denise Wilms. The case has involved at least eight defense attorneys, five assistant prosecutors, and taken more than four years to try three times in front of three juries and two judges with neither of the first two juries able to reach a unanimous verdict. Brooks' first trial, in Judge James Miraldi's courtroom in November 2021, ended in a mistrial by a hung jury. Miraldi found Brooks guilty of a felony charge of having weapons under disability following that trial — the jury was not allowed to know that Brooks is a convicted felon because it might have prejudiced them — but no sentence has been imposed for that crime. Brooks' second trial also ended in a mistrial, again by hung jury and this time in Kobasher's courtroom in June. After that trial ended, Brooks' girlfriend Renee Richardson pleaded guilty to and was convicted of felony evidence tampering in June for deleting messages between her and Brooks from her phone that prosecutors could prove were shared between the two of them based on phone records, Kern said in June. Richardson, whom Kobasher sentenced to two years probation, didn't testify in the first two trials but has been subpoenaed to testify in this third trial, according to court records. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.