Recently, an Ohio woman has been accused of fatally stabbing three-year-old Julian Wood in the parking lot of the North Olmstead Giant Eagle store. Bionca Ellis appeared in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas on Monday after initially being arraigned at the Rocky River Municipal Court.
During Monday’s arraignment, the proceedings had to be halted twice where the first time, Ellis refused to acknowledge questions from Judge Nancy Russo. Another time, Ellis maintained that she “did not know” if her indictment had been read to her.
During a third attempt at Ellis’ arraignment, she was brought to face the judge. However, as Russo read the indictment aloud, she could be seen smiling and smirking while appearing completely remorseless and uninterested in the charges brought against her. Upon being asked if she would plead not guilty, Ellis giggled and said “si” before eventually saying yes.
Prior to setting bail, Julian Wood’s father, Jared Wood, spoke to the judge, illustrating what had been taken away from the family. He urged Judge Russo to do whatever was necessary to keep Ellis behind bars and away from society.
“Your honor, the day, one week ago, she took everything from us,” Wood stated. “There is nothing that could ever replace my son or anything that my wife or I or even my other kids are going through. It’s horrendous.” He added, “Do whatever you can to keep this monster behind bars.”
Wood requested that there be no bail. However, Russo set Ellis’ bail at $5 million, the highest she could. Per the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, a grand jury indicted Ellis on the following charges: One count of Aggravated Murder, Two counts of Murder, Two counts of Attempted Murder, Two counts of Felonious Assault, One count of Endangering Children, One count of Tampering With Evidence, One count of Misdemeanor Theft.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor O’Malley said, “This case is truly devastating. I want to express my heartfelt condolences to the Wood family during this difficult time. As a father, I could not begin to imagine this grief, but I can promise that we will do everything in our power to bring justice for Julian Wood and the Wood family.” Watch footage of Ellis’ behavior below:
Case Western Reserve School of Law Senior Instructor and death penalty lawyer Michael Benza spoke to 19 News about the state of the case, where there have been suggestions that it could be a capital murder case where the death penalty could be employed.
Benza stated, “So we’re at the very beginning process of this case, so there’s still a fair amount of work that will have to be done before the issue of a not guilty by reason of insanity we would be entered if this is going to be a capital case, for example, there need to be the appointment of two capital qualified attorneys.”
The lawyer further explained why obtaining the death penalty would be difficult in this case. “Well, one of the reasons that death penalty cases are so difficult, both to prosecute and defend and to defend, but then also to get to the resolution of life versus death, is we’ve built in so many different types of protection,” he said.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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