Law enforcement officers and crime lab employees took the stand Thursday and Friday in the fatal shooting trial of Kevin Morese Robinson Jr.
Robinson, 24, is on trial for felony first-degree murder in connection with 21-year-old Robert Rones’ death on May 27, 2022. The trial of his co-defendant, Ryan Robinson, is scheduled to start on June 2.
Witness Klitz Manlutac was one of the last people to see Rones alive. Manlutac had known Rones since 2016 and said they were close friends. He testified that he hadn’t seen Rones in about a week when Rones called him around 11:30 p.m. on May 26, 2022, inviting him to hang out. They met at the Alaska Club Fairbanks South and played basketball until 1:41 a.m. May 27.
Due to construction, they took a detour through South Fairbanks, then went to their separate residences. Manlutac testified that he got a call later that morning from Rones’ cousin telling him that Rones was “gone.”
“At first I didn’t believe him,” Manlutac testified.
Manlutac told the jury that he went to high school with Kevin Robinson and knew that Robinson had “beef” with Rones.
He said he recently saw a social media post in which Robinson called Rones his “op,” slang for someone a person considers their enemy.
Multiple law enforcement officers also took the stand Thursday. The jury listened to two recorded June 2022 interviews between Kevin Robinson and Fairbanks police officers.
In the first interview, Robinson told Fairbanks Police Lt. Amy Davis and Investigator Al Bell that he “lost everything” after Rones made him rob a McDonald’s at gunpoint with him in 2019. He said he was supposed to participate in the Alaska Job Corps and become an electrician, but his conviction “literally stopped me from being able to do all of that.”
Kevin Robinson told investigators that around 2 a.m. May 27, 2022, he went to the former Holiday Gas Station on South Cushman Street with Ryan Robinson.
“I don’t know how he got shot, I’m being dead honest,” he told investigators.
He said Rones tried to run him off the Richardson Highway a few days beforehand. Robinson had posted a nine-second video on social media of Rones’ car and wrote, “Ima get yo [expletive].”
When officers asked if he shot Rones because Rones snitched on him in 2019, he said, “No, sir. Didn’t touch him.”
In a second interview later that day with Davis and Detective Robert Hall, Kevin Robinson told officers that he wanted to fight Rones but shot him after seeing Rones “go for something” in his glove compartment.
“My intention was not to shoot him, but to fight,” Robinson told police. “I wanted to fight Rones. That’s all I wanted, was to fight Rones and get it over with. I just wanted hands, not death, I wanted hands.”
Kevin Robinson said he did not plan to shoot Rones but only fired after seeing Rones reach for his glove compartment.
In a recorded phone call with his mother, Robinson said, “I popped Rones. Again, I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight.”
When his mom asked, “You did it?”, Robinson replied, “Yes.”
Investigator Jeremy Rupe testified that he searched Ryan Robinson’s Toyota 4Runner and found a Glock semi-automatic pistol and a magazine with 13 rounds.
“I noticed it as soon as I opened up the car door,” he said.
Investigator Edwin Albert executed a search warrant on Ryan Robinson’s house on June 7, 2022, where law enforcement found a Glock handgun case between a nightstand and Ryan Robinson’s bed.
Nicolette Roth, an expert in firearm and tool mark analysis at the Alaska Crime Lab, determined that 12 discharged casings she received matched a Glock Model 21 .45-caliber pistol.
Gary Zientek, a medical examiner for the state and an expert in forensic pathology, performed an autopsy on Rones’ body in 2022. He testified that he found five bullet wounds in Rones’ body and was not able to determine the order in which the shots were fired.
Zientek told the jury that he determined the cause of death was three bullets to Rones’ shoulder, which caused “significant damage,” and the manner of death was homicide.
Shasta Pomeroy, a former crime scene investigator for FPD, testified Friday that she took photos of the scene of the shooting and did not find weapons in Rones’ car.
The trial will continue this morning at the Rabinowitz Courthouse in Fairbanks.
