The case involving a Gary teen who shot and killed a woman while mowing her neighbor’s lawn nearly two years ago has more questions than meet the eye, according to his attorney.
In Monday’s opening statements in the trial of Jaron LaDale Starks Jr., Lake County Prosecuting Attorney Judith Massa told the jury that 36-year-old victim Jessica Lipscomb had been “day drinking” and that she’d been criticizing Starks’s “lawn mowing skills too many times” the day he shot her. Starks has been charged with murder.
Lipscomb was, however, “barefoot and unarmed,” and Starks immediately fled the scene, Massa said; video footage taken from Lipscomb’s boyfriend’s security cameras will bear that scenario.
But murder “requires intention or knowing,” said Starks’s attorney Jesse Harper, and Starks had never seen Lipscomb before that day. Starks was mowing the lawn of Lipscomb’s neighbor as a favor to the owner of another lawn service who’d been helping him out with starting his own business when Lipscomb, who was drunk, drove her SUV into the yard Starks was mowing.
Starks’s boss, Marcus Jones, told Starks to “go into the backyard,” as Lipscomb’s sons tried to move the truck. At the point Starks came back to mow the front yard, Starks saw Lipscomb “digging in her truck for something,” Harper said.
As he continued to try and do his job, Starks felt someone “go for his gun” that he carried for protection against stray dogs, Harper said. That’s when he shot Lipscomb.
Harper didn’t dispute that Starks ran away, but said he did so because he was a scared 18-year-old. Harper also pointed out that there was a “rush to judgment” in the case.
“Who wasn’t spoken to? What evidence wasn’t collected?” Harper asked the jury. “I want you to ask yourselves, ‘Why are we here?’”
Testimony was to start Tuesday morning, and the trial is expected to conclude Friday.
Gary Police responded at 5:15 p.m. Sept. 4, 2024, to the 1900 block of Noble Street. Lipscomb was found at the crime scene, shot once in the chest, and she was pronounced dead at Methodist Hospital.
One 9-mm bullet casing was found at the scene.
A Ring video showed Lipscomb yelling at two males working on the lawn next door. She walks out of camera view toward one male in a red shirt on a riding mower, while a second man is trimming grass. She is still “heard yelling” when a gunshot is fired, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
The man with the red shirt ran across the street, holding a suspected gun. He got into a white Ford Taurus that took off. Police traced the car through a license plate reader system to Starks’s girlfriend.
Police found a 9 mm bullet casing inside the car when executing a search warrant. Investigators matched Starks’s BMV photo to the Ring video.
Starks Jr., who was 18 when the shooting took place, faces up to 65 years, including a firearms enhancement. He is also facing misdemeanor marijuana possession and paraphernalia charges.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
