The trial is underway for a 58-year-old man who is facing a slew of charges after allegedly killing three men in 2023.
Elias Gudino is charged with aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and kidnapping.
The crimes occurred in March of 2023 when the bodies of Inmer Reyes and Victor Varela-Rodriguez were found off Cordova Avenue in Akron.
Police said that Reyes and Varela-Rodriguez had been gagged, tied up and shot in the head.
Within an hour, the body of another man, Domingo Castillo-Reyes, was found on Wright Road in Copley. He was killed in the same way.
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Investigators said the victims were allegedly kidnapped from a house in Youngstown by Gudino, and the men were non-U.S. citizens from Honduras.
Another man was found wandering in Copley earlier that day after Gudino allegedly shot him. A bullet grazed him in the head, and he survived by playing dead, police said.
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Coincidentally, during questioning, police and that victim had stopped at a gas station, and Gudino happened to be there simultaneously.
After the victim identified Gudino as the alleged killer, police arrested him.
During opening statements on Monday, a prosecutor described the state of the victims at the time they were found.
"All three individuals were found on the side of the road with blue duct tape around their heads, wrists tied," Zachary Neumann, the assistant Summit County prosecutor, said. "Later determined that they had 'MS 13' written on their chests, and they all suffered single gunshot wounds to the head."
The "MS 13" written on the victims' chests is a reference to an international crime gang, attorney said.
The defense said Gudino was under duress, and he was forced into the kidnappings by someone in a drug cartel. They said Gudino was not the one to pull the trigger.
"We're not going to contest a lot of the evidence. A lot of stuff you heard the prosecutor talk about, we agree on. These events did happen. It's a horrible tragedy, but who is behind it, the reasons for it, and who decided to do it?" Defense attorney Noah Munyer said. "And the question becomes simply, is he the fifth hostage or the mastermind?"
Gudino is expected to testify in the trial, which is expected to last a few weeks.
