Bonita Wright convicted, sentenced to 18 years-to-life in prison in boyfriend Keyron Ficklin's 2022 murder

ELYRIA — It took a Lorain County Common Pleas jury less than three hours of deliberation Thursday to reach guilty verdicts on murder and other charges against Bonita Wright in the stabbing death of her boyfriend Keyron Ficklin in 2022. Seven women and five men deliberated eight charges against Wright, 31, finding her guilty of two counts of murder, three counts of felonious assault and two counts of tampering with evidence in the Aug. 31, 2022, killing of Ficklin, 28, during a fight at Wright's residence on Church Lane in the Riverside Homes housing complex. The lone crime for which the jury found Wright not guilty was a murder charge that accused Wright of "purposefully" causing Ficklin's death. The jury got the case from Judge Christopher Rothgery at 12:28 p.m. Shortly after 3 p.m., it was announced there was a verdict, which the judge delivered in a near-totally silent courtroom. After announcing the verdicts, Rothgery immediately proceeded with sentencing. He sentenced Wright to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 18 years — 15 years to life on a murder charge plus an additional three years consecutive to that for tampering with evidence that the judge said Wright did "to avoid conviction for murder." Wright appeared to show no reaction to the verdicts and declined to say anything in court prior to sentencing. Her mother, Anna Moore, cried after her daughter was led away by sheriff's deputies. "It's a very unfortunate and tragic thing for all concerned," defense attorney Kenneth Lieux said in brief remarks prior to his client's sentencing. He declined further comment after the hearing. Rothgery appointed attorney Giovanna Scaletta-Bremke to handle Wright's appeal, which must be filed within 30 days. Wright received credit toward her prison sentence for 312 days already served in jail awaiting trial. Ficklin's family, who attended every day of the weeklong trial, did not make any statements in court prior to sentencing. Three jurors, including the jury foreperson, declined to say anything about the verdict when given the opportunity outside the courthouse following sentencing. On their verdict forms, jurors decided that Wright was not acting in self-defense when she stabbed Ficklin once in the heart with a steak knife. The blade went through his lung and aorta and penetrated his heart, a wound that killed him within minutes. Ficklin was found dead, facedown, on Wright's kitchen floor the following morning by Elyria police and fire personnel and LifeCare paramedics responding to a 911 call placed by Wright. The defense painted Wright as a victim of domestic abuse, but prosecutors presented evidence that it was she who abused Ficklin during their yearlong relationship, right up until his death. Prosecution: Wright abused Ficklin In closing out their weeklong case against her, the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office, represented by assistant prosecutors Matt Kern and Daniellela Leigh, argued that Wright was the one who abused Ficklin throughout their relationship. Wright "belittled" and "berated" Ficklin in text messages and audio recordings provided to the jury, questioned his masculinity, called him profane names and told him he was "embarrassing" to her. "You even drive like an (expletive) kid," she told him in an audio recording he made of her berating him. "Go lift some weights or something." She then told Elyria police detectives that Ficklin had abused her, pointing to his February 2022 arrest on domestic violence and assault charges that ended up dismissed in Elyria Municipal Court two months later. Leigh warned the jury that Lieux would criticize the Elyria Police Department's investigation and the evidence, but urged jurors to focus on the "quality of the evidence, not the quantity of the evidence." Two Elyria police officers had been called to 113 Church Lane for an argument between Ficklin and Wright early on the morning of Aug. 31, 2022, but they found no violence and no victims, so they left without charging either person. Ficklin was dead less than two hours later. Wright, Leigh said, had told officers she wanted Ficklin "excluded" from her home but he had a key and appeared to be living there. When officers wouldn't do what Wright wanted done to Ficklin, "she excluded him herself" by killing him, Leigh told the jury. She later threw the murder weapon off her front porch, tried to clean up the blood that had pooled around Ficklin's body, and said in an interview with police that she went to bed drunk and didn't know Ficklin had died until she called 911 just before 8:30 a.m. Aug. 31, 2022, according to the prosecution's version of events. Leigh said that Wright further abused Ficklin's memory during her four-hour interrogation video when she yelled at her recently dead boyfriend because he just "lay there." "This man couldn't even die right to her," Leigh told the jury. Defense: Ficklin abused Wright Lieux told jurors it was up to them to determine if Wright acted in justifiable self-defense. He said Ficklin spent most of his time smoking marijuana and hanging out with convicted felons, likely was cheating on Wright with at least two other women and that Wright was trapped in a "cycle" of abuse. Ficklin "battered her, he controlled her," Lieux alleged. "Who's the aggressor? Put yourself in her shoes." Wright had a "reasonable" fear of harm from Ficklin, grabbed a knife and defended herself, he said. That's something she was allowed to do in her own home, Lieux said. He also questioned why authorities didn't test all the knives they found at the scene. Witnesses said in earlier testimony that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification puts limits on how many pieces of evidence it will test in most cases. "Don't you want some certainty … wouldn't you want some certainty of the evidence?" Lieux asked the jury. For Kern, who was allowed a rebuttal to Lieux's closing, it came down to who was controlling whom in the relationship, and who was belittling, berating and abusing whom and making threats of violence. Ficklin was never convicted of domestic violence, and kept his expectation of being "innocent until proven guilty" through his death, Kern said. He also questioned Wright's true feelings toward Ficklin, whom she frequently threatened to beat up in text messages — and "'beating your ass' is not an expression of love," Kern said. Lastly, it was Wright who told Elyria police that she was the first one to pick up a knife the night of the fatal assault, Kern said. Ficklin "tried to leave. She wouldn't let him," he said. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.