After initially being found not guilty of attempted murder, a jury found a Brown County man guilty of Level 3 aggravated battery Sept. 26 after a new trial.
It took the jury a little more than three hours to find Kenneth Guy, 61, guilty of attacking his brother, David Guy, in 2016. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Oct. 24.
Guy will go to trial again on Dec. 4 to have a jury decide if he committed Level 6 forgery or not.
Last March, a Brown County jury hung 11 to 1, but in favor of guilty, on the aggravated battery charge. In that trial, Kenneth Guy was acquitted of attempted murder, but he was convicted of criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon and resisting law enforcement.
“This matter was absolutely critical for public safety and unequivocally worth pursuing,” said Brown County Prosecutor Ted Adams in a press release.
He said that the case represented “an extreme reminder of the danger of absolving individuals of responsibility for their crimes.” In the early 1990s, Guy was found not guilty by reason of insanity in California for killing a Brown County native, Shalom Moore.
“That does not mean he did not commit the act. He committed the act,” Adams stated. “It means that California found that he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct and, therefore, could not form the requisite mental state necessary for committing the murder.”
Guy was committed to institutions in California, then released, Adams said.
Not long after Guy arrived back in Brown County from California, he was accused of shooting and clubbing his brother in the head. He has now been convicted of three of the charges he faced in that case.
Adams said witnesses and the victim in the case were “challenging.” The eyewitness to the attack is currently in jail on various drug charges.
David Guy, 59, the victim, was scheduled to be sentenced for dealing methamphetamine this month.
Adams said some people in the community were critical of him taking this matter to trial again, but he said safety concerns about Kenneth Guy existed.
“The more dangerous and violent the crime, the more we ought to bring that person to justice to preserve public safety,” Adams said.
The brothers accused each other of starting the fight. The victim, David, admitted to being high on meth, opioids and marijuana on Sept. 6, 2016. He testified that Kenneth was acting unstable before the attack that day.
After he was arrested, Kenneth wrote a letter trying to bribe a fellow inmate to say another man committed the attack against David.
Kenneth also wrote a letter to his brother’s public defender, acting as David, saying he wanted to recant what he said happened; he said his brother did not commit the attack, and instead it was another man who was at the home. That letter resulted in his forgery charge.
Kenneth Guy’s defense attorney, Andrew Baldwin argued in his opening statement that there were problems with the prosecution’s timeline of events the evening of the attack. He also argued that the prosecution had credibility and “drug world” problems when it came to the victim, David Guy.
Baldwin argued that blood evidence was not found in the home where the attack occurred, even though David Guy told two people he had been inside when he was allegedly shot by his brother. Baldwin argued that David Guy’s “second story” of being shot outside, causing him to walk inside the home to find a cellphone to call for help, also lacked blood evidence.
In his opening statement to the jury, Adams said the relationship between the brothers continued to deteriorate after their mother passed away in July 2016, including Kenneth Guy making threats on David’s life.
The two did not have direct contact until the attacked happened, since David Guy had locked Kenneth Guy out of their mother’s home where the two had been living. On that evening, David Guy allegedly let Kenneth Guy in to gather up his belongings because he was planning on moving.
Adams argued that when David Guy was outside eating dinner, Kenneth Guy shot him in the head. Kenneth Guy then hit his brother with an aluminum baseball bat, causing him to fall off a porch before fleeing the scene.
A witness to the attack went back to his home in the Bean Blossom Trailer Court to call 911.
“I’ll ask you to pay attention to the accounts, listen to the consistency of those accounts from the people that were there,” Adams said, citing that David Guy told consistent stories about what happened to police and EMS.
After finding Kenneth Guy in the Trevlac area, police reported finding a firearm and baseball bat that were consistent with the story David Guy told.
Adams said the state did not claim to know what exactly Kenneth shot David with, but only the act of shooting was important.
DNA evidence was also presented that had David Guy’s DNA on the end of the baseball bat.
Adams also stated that Kenneth Guy tested positive for methamphetamine.
In a follow-up interview with police, Kenneth Guy said 16 times in less than 10 minutes that he did not remember what happened.
In his opening statement, Baldwin argued that David and the eyewitness made up the attack. He also said that David’s stories changed about where he was when he was shot.
Kenneth is now facing up to 17 years in prison for what he has been convicted of so far.
He admitted to the forgery charge under oath in the first trial. If he’s convicted of that charge during his December trial, it would add an additional two-and-a-half years to his sentence.
There is also an active warrant for his arrest out of Greenwood City Court for a Class A misdemeanor where he faces an additional year of jail time.
Adams stated he intends to seek the maximum possible sentence.
