Third person charged in case of fatal shooting of boy at Plain Township motel
CANTON ‒ A third person has been charged in connection with a shooting that claimed the life of a 7-year-old boy on Friday at the Knights Inn motel in Plain Township.
Joseph E. King, 32, appeared Monday in Canton Municipal Court on a charge of tampering with evidence. He is accused of tampering with the gun that killed Ka'Marion Dolch.
The boy's father also appeared before Judge Kristen D. Guardado on Monday morning.
William B. Dolch, 37, is charged with reckless homicide, endangering children, evidence tampering and having weapons under disability in connection with the death of his son. He is accused of allowing Ka'Marion to be in a motel room with a loaded gun that discharged and killed the boy.
Both men are listed in court records as living in the Belden Village-area motel at 3950 Convenience Circle NW, just east of Whipple Avenue NW.
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Dolch and King are scheduled to appear in municipal court Thursday for status hearings. The charges against them are felonies.
Brittany Franko, 29, of Canton, has been charged with complicity to reckless homicide, child endangering and obstructing official business in the same case. She is also listed as a resident of Knights Inn.
The obstruction charge alleges that she delayed deputies and detectives in their duties by giving false information to dispatchers and deputies about what happened.
She was in the motel room when the shooting occurred and maintained she didn't know where the shot came from and didn't mention William Dolch being there, according to the recording of a 911 call she made. No court appearance is scheduled for Franko. Her felony charges are pending in Canton Municipal Court.
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Elise Hamilton, senior trial counsel for the Canton Prosecutor's Office, said she could not say who fired the weapon or how it discharged. The case remains under investigation, she said.
Guardado ordered King and Dolch to have no contact with the victim's family. She sent bond at $500,000 for Dolch on three of the charges, and $250,000 for the weapons charge. King's bond is $250,000.
Public defender Athena Giavasis represented King and Dolch in court Monday. Another defense attorney is to be appointed to represent King.
Stark County Sheriff George T. Maier has said there were three children, a man and a woman in the motel room at the time of the fatal shooting.
Deputies responded to the scene around 1 a.m. Friday. The boy was pronounced dead at 1:26 a.m. at a hospital in Canton. He had been shot in the back. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office will perform an autopsy. Ka'Marion lived in Cuyahoga County.
Reach Nancy at 330-580-8382 or nancy.molnar@cantonrep.com. On X, formerly known as Twitter: @nmolnarTR.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Joseph King charged with evidence tampering in Ka'Marion Dolch case
