ALLEN COUNTY, OH (WLIO) - After three days of testimony, it is up to a jury to decide the fate of 24-year-old Daquan Burse.
Attorneys for both sides presented their closing arguments Friday morning. The jury will have to make decisions in three separate cases against Burse. A drug possession charge of a fentanyl-related substance, a trafficking heroin charge, which police did buy from him, and a 2019 shooting at a house on Collett Street where three women were in a car when it was hit by gunfire. Prosecutors claim the shooting was a retaliation for his mother's house getting shot at two days prior.
Why did he do it," says Allen County Assistant Prosecutor Joe Everhart. "Because his mom's house just got shot up. His mom was afraid to be there by herself. His sister's friends didn't want to be there. I was drinking, I was in my feeling, I had to do something about it. So, I ran over there and shot his house."
Burse's attorney said he lied about doing the shooting when he was interviewed by police in 2020 because wanted to get out of police custody to feed his drug addiction.
"He was in a desperate time in his life on Feb. 20, 2020," says defense attorney Kirk McVay. "He was addicted to drugs, he was depressed, he was suffering significate losses due to death, accidental or otherwise. He was locked up, he started, he felt, go through withdraw. He needed to be out on the street to get high."
The jury went into deliberations Friday afternoon.
