Mother of accused Cleveland killer admits she planned to lie on his behalf in courtroom
CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - The mother of the Cleveland man accused of killing a four-year-old boy testified in his murder trial Friday that she intended to lie on his behalf.
Sandra Coleman was called to the witness state by prosecutors.
With her son, Romaine Tolbert sitting across the room, she was pressed on her previous intentions.
She testified that her plan was to lie to a grand jury in 2018 and corroborate Tolbert’s claims that he dropped the child off with another woman back in 2016.
“So you were going to lie for your son?” asked Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Anna Faraglia.
“Yes,” Coleman replied.
Just prior to his 2019 indictment, Tolbert told police that he dropped Eliazar Ruiz off for someone else to take care of in November of 2016.
He said his mother drove him.
According to Coleman’s testimony, that did not happen.
In 2015, the little boy’s mother asked Tolbert and his wife Joanna Vega to look after him as she dealt with personal problems, including drug addiction and a long jail history.
His remains were found in a trash bag behind a vacant home in the 12000 block of Longmead Ave. on Cleveland’s West Side in September 2017.
Positive identification wasn’t made until 2018.
Both Tolbert and Vega were indicted.
Vega pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter last Friday. She’s expected to testify against Tolbert at trial.
The jury was shown a video of one of Tolbert’s early police interviews, which took place before the indictment.
He told investigators that he dropped the child off with a woman by the name of Tiffany Dunlap.
Previous witnesses have testified that she and the boy’s mother, Ashley Makuhan, knew each other from their stays in jail.
Dunlap died in 2017, but several family members testified on Friday that the child was never dropped off with Dunlap.
“She would not have watched anybody’s kids but her own,” said her mother, Michelle Dunlap.
She, along with Tiffany’s boyfriend and her brother testified that they did not personally know Makuhan, Tolbert or Vega.
They all said Tiffany had never taken custody or care of Ruiz.
Prosecutors spent the bulk of the day focusing on apparent inconsistencies in Tolbert’s story.
The first witness of the day was Ruiz’s grandmother, Dawn Battle.
Battle testified, with photographic evidence, that she and Tolbert had been in communication on Facebook for months after the date he claimed to have dropped the child off with Dunlap.
In some of those messages, Tolbert suggests to Battle that the four-year-old was still living with him and his family.
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