‘Not guilty:’ Jury acquits Yanez Sanford of capital murder in 2016 Topeka triple killing

A Shawnee County District Court jury on Friday found Yanez Sanford "not guilty" of crimes that included capital murder linked to a 2016 Topeka triple homicide.

A nine-man, three-woman jury concluded reasonable doubt existed to believe that Sanford, 41, played a role in the Aug. 7, 2016, gunshot deaths of 23-year-old Dominique Ray, 20-year-old Camrah Trotter and Trotter's unborn daughter at Fairlawn Greens Apartments, 5235 S.W. 20th Terrace.

The verdict drew an angry response from Trotter's father, Charles Trotter, who shouted "Bullshit" and was asked to leave the courtroom.

"This is all about truth and honesty, and what was served today was not that," Trotter told The Capital-Journal soon afterward as a female family member wailed nearby in front of the courthouse.

"This ain't Kansas — it's Klansas," he added. "They hang the Blacks. They hang the whites. The want the Blacks to go get the whites. They want the whites to go get the whites. They want everybody in chaos in here in Topeka, and I'm sick and tired of it, and guess what. There will be a protest made."

What did prosecutors say happened?

The verdict concluded a 10-day trial in which prosecutors said that a man, early on the day of the killings, carried a gun as he pushed his way into the apartment where Ray and Trotter lived with Trotter's 4-year-old daughter, and that Trotter was raped during the roughly two-hour period in which that man waited there with another man.

The two men then shot Ray to death when he came to the front door with his cousin, Jamontez Fulton, prosecutors said.

They said the two men chased and fired shots at Fulton, who got away away as Trotter called 911 from her apartment. One then returned to the apartment and fatally shot Trotter as she was on the phone, prosecutors said.

Sanford is the only person to have been charged with crimes linked to the deaths. He was found "not guilty" on all nine criminal counts he faced.

What was said in closing arguments?

Jurors heard closing arguments Thursday afternoon from Dan Dunbar, a retired Shawnee County chief deputy district attorney working as a special prosecutor on the case, and Emily Barclay, senior assistant capital defender with the state's Death Penalty Defense Unit.

Surviving witnesses Fulton and Trotter's daughter, La'Miya Ryce, who was then 4 years old and is now 12, identified Sanford during the trial as being the killer.

La'Miya told of how she had been at the apartment with her mother when one of the killers pushed his way in. She said she was left alone at times in her room during the home invasion.

Prosecutors contended that was when Sanford raped Trotter, who wore only a towel when Ray arrived home.

La'Miya said she then watched as Ray and Trotter were fatally shot, then she hid under a bed.

Defense attorneys questioned the credibility of Fulton, who saw the killers only briefly, and La'Miya, who shared only minimal information when she was 4 years old but told police considerably more when she was 8.

Those testifying for the defense included an expert witness who said police often manipulate children they question into giving the answer the child thinks the investigator will consider to be the "right" one.

Keith Henderson, senior deputy district attorney for Shawnee County, told jurors in opening arguments last week that Topeka police got their "big break" in the case when a vaginal swab collected from Trotter collected seminal fluid, which DNA testing proved belonged to Sanford.

Still, prosecutors didn't charge Sanford at that time.

What led to Sanford's being charged?

District Attorney Mike Kagay's office filed charges four years later, in September 2020, after police once again interviewed La'Miya, who was 8 by that time.

Attorneys representing Sanford noted at the trial that Sanford was charged during an election year, and questioned whether that move may have been political.

La'Miya provided more detailed information in 2020, which was consistent with what the evidence showed, Henderson said.

Dunbar stressed that DNA evidence showed Sanford's seminal fluids were found inside Trotter.

But Barclay stressed that aside from the seminal fluids found inside Trotter, Sanford's DNA couldn't be found anywhere in her apartment.

Sanford's attorneys said DNA can remain in the body for a week, and suggested Sanford and Trotter had consensual sex at some point during the week before she died.

Sanford exercised his constitutional right not to testify at the trial. Jurors were told they were not allowed to hold that against him.

Dunbar said text messages sent in the days before her death gave no indication that Trotter was having sex outside of her relationship with Ray.

Barclay countered that prosecutors "cherry-picked" from Trotter's text messages in reaching that conclusion. Other evidence showed Trotter's and Ray's relationship was characterized by infidelity, animosity and distrust, she said.

Barclay stressed that Christopher Glenn, then Shawnee County's district coroner, testified during Sanford's trial that Trotter suffered no injuries that were consistent with her being raped.

Dunbar replied that the absence of physical injury to Trotter's vaginal area didn't mean she wasn't raped. He suggested she "gave in" to the rape in hopes doing so would help enable her to "live until the next day."

What about alternative suspects?

Peter Conley, senior assistant capital defender for the Capital Death Penalty Defense Unit, in opening arguments last week shared names of men he suggested may have instead killed Ray in retaliation for the Feb. 14, 2016, southeast Topeka shooting death of Del Juan Patton, whom Conley said had been Trotter's boyfriend.

Ray was suspected of killing Patton, Conley told jurors.

Barclay suggested Thursday that Victor Riggin, the Topeka police department's lead investigator on the case, and other detectives should have done a better job and more thoroughly investigated those men, whom she described as "alternative suspects."

Dunbar said police consider those men to be not "alternative suspects" but potential "accomplices" of Sanford's, and were continuing to investigate their possible involvement.

Sanford had earlier juvenile adjudication for rape

Barclay acknowledged that Sanford had been adjudicated as a juvenile of being guilty of a rape committed when he was 14 years old but said that wasn't relevant to the case before the jury this week.

Dunbar replied that he personally hadn't even brought that up.

"But it happened," he said. "It's not nothing. You should consider that in your deliberations."

Jury deliberations began at around 3:45 p.m. Thursday and ended just before 1 p.m. Friday.

What had happened earlier regarding evidence in the case?

Sanford's attorneys sought Dec. 13 to have all charges against him dismissed, saying Sanford could no longer get a fair trial because of the destruction of 30 Axon police body camera videos taken in 2016 as part of the investigation.

The body camera video and other evidence were ordered preserved in February 2021. Police were then taken by surprise when the videos were destroyed later that year at the end of a planned five-year retention period.

Judge Bill Ossmann, who presided over the trial that ended Friday, rejected that request April 1, saying Sanford was still capable of getting a fair trial despite the absence of the body camera videos.

Attorneys representing Sanford told jurors about the destruction of the videos during Sanford's trial, and suggested they may have contained evidence that would have helped prove his innocence.

Sanford became the fourth defendant acquitted of murder in Shawnee County since March 2023, with the others having been Cassie Holden in August 2023, Darnell Tyree-Peppers in June 2023 and Tony Baird in March 2023.

Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934..

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Jury acquits Yanez Sanford of capital murder in Topeka triple killing