Mistrial declared for third defendant in Hunnewell killing

A mistrial was declared this week by the judge in the case against the third defendant in the 2013 killing of Kelly Hunnewell, a 33-year-old mother of four, during a robbery at a Columbia bakery.

The week-long trial was scheduled to conclude Monday with closing statements from prosecutors Luck Campbell, Dolly Garfield and Nicole Simpson as well as defendant Troy Stevenson’s defense attorney Aimee Zmroczek.

But just before the jury was to begin deliberations, prosecutors requested a mistrial on grounds of jury misconduct.

Circuit Judge Robert Hood granted the mistrial after prosecutors said one of their investigators saw an alternate juror hugging Stevenson’s family members outside of the courtroom. Despite Hood’s orders to “keep an open mind” about the evidence presented in the case, one alternate juror said she already had made up her mind and “that the case was ridiculous.”

Hood also said one of the alternate jurors was attempting to elicit cooperation from other black jurors to not convict Stevenson on charges of murder, second-degree burglary, kidnapping and attempted armed robbery. The jury was made up of seven African Americans and five white people.

Prosecutors accused Stevenson, 18 at the time of the crime, of being the “lookout” while his younger half-brother Trenton Barnes, then 16, and Lorenzo Young, then 18, entered an off-site bakery for the Carolina Cafe on July 1, 2013 and shot and killed Hunnewell, who was preparing bagels.

Hunnewell, a single mother, had four children, who were ages 13, 9, 8 and 6 at the time of her death.

Barnes and Young were both found guilty of murder in December. Barnes received a 50-year sentence, while Young is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors said Barnes was the triggerman.

There has been no word regarding a retrial date if one is to be held.

This story was originally published June 23, 2015 at 2:54 PM.