AKRON, Ohio — Jury selection began Monday in the trial for 59-year-old Elias Gudino, which comes more than 18 months after he was arrested in connection with a triple murder in Summit County last year where authorities say the bodies of three men were found bound and gagged.
The case dates back to early March 2023 when the Copley Police Department received a call reporting that a body had been found adjacent to the roadway in the 2100 block of Wright Road.
That same morning, two more men were found dead in Akron a short distance away along Cordova Avenue.
Police say all three victims -- who were from Youngstown -- had been bound and gagged in a similar fashion. The victims were later identified as 25-year-old Inmer Reyes, 31-year-old Victor Varela-Rodriguez and 35-year-old Domingo Castillo-Reyes.
Gudino faces the following charges in the case:
- Six counts of aggravated murder
- Two counts of attempted aggravated murder
- Three counts of murder
- One count of attempted murder
- Four counts of kidnapping
- Having weapons under disability
- Tampering with evidence
You can read the indictment against Gudino, which is dated April 10, 2023, in the document below:
CRIME SCENE SURVIVOR
How did police find their suspect? Gudino was taken into custody after a series of events in which authorities say a man survived the incident by playing dead.
Here’s how that situation unfolded...
Before the bodies were discovered, Copley police responded to a call around 7:05 a.m. that a man was seen along Collier Road in the rain.
He was a Hispanic man who spoke very little English.
“Officers made an effort to communicate with the male with a translation phone app,” Copley police said in a previous press release last year. “The male indicated that he had been abandoned by his friends late the evening before or early this date. There was no indication that the male had broken any laws and he was transported to the Haven of Rest shelter.”
After the body was found on Wright Road, officers returned to the Haven of Rest and brought the man to the police station where a translator from a federal law enforcement agency conducted an interview.
“At this time, the male made statements connecting himself to the Wright Road scene,” Copley police said. “The male reported he had been kidnapped along with the deceased male, and two other males, from the Youngstown area and forcibly brought to the Copley / Akron area. He also reported that the kidnappers shot the male found on Wright Road and shot at him, however, he was not injured. The male played dead until the kidnappers left the area.”
Copley police said they found evidence near the body on Wright Road to support the man’s statement.
“It appears that this male then walked from the area in an effort to find his way back to Youngstown when the Copley police officers found him and provided him assistance,” Copley police continued.
SUSPECT SPOTTED
Later in the afternoon, Copley police drove that man throughout the area “in an effort to search for a home where the kidnapped males had been held.”
Then, around 5 p.m., they stumbled upon the suspect at a gas station on Copley Road.
“By chance, the Hispanic male with the detectives observed a male in the gas station that he identified as a suspect in his kidnapping.”
Police made contact with the suspect, who voluntarily accompanied detectives to the police station.
“Detectives also located additional evidence to connect the male with the crime,” according to Copley police.
That suspect, identified as Gudino, was arrested.
