Court reporter Kelly Wilson calls it quits after 3 decades
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WARREN -- Beside the judge's bench during a trial last week, in the heart of tense courtroom drama and pivotal decisions, sat now-retired court reporter Kelly Wilson.
The 57-year-old has served in the role for just under 32 years, starting in 1992 with former Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge W. Wyatt McKay. Wilson had her final criminal court day last week alongside Judge Sean O'Brien, who was elected to take over McKay's seat on the bench in 2022.
For Wilson, the time finally had come to step away.
"I'm a big fan of travel, music and I don't espouse the idea of working forever. I can do it now and I'm ready to go towards the next chapter," the seasoned court reporter said.
Part of the post-retirement luxury Wilson says is "figuring it out as you go," but her itinerary already includes trips to Florida before catching a concert in Austin, Texas, with plans for a three-day music festival in Virginia come spring.
After 30 years she says, "You feel like you've accomplished it, now there's others that need jobs and for me to enjoy old age."
Wilson recalled initially planning to walk off into the sunset with McKay.
"Then they added on another year. But I was ready to go by that point," she said.
BEGINNING OF CAREER
Starting in 1992 with carbon paper at her fingertips, Wilson chronicled the ebb and flow of justice under McKay. Fresh out of high school at 17, Wilson said she was a teenager that needed to make money, so she went to school at ITT in Youngstown before she cut her legal teeth freelancing at David R. Burton & Associates law firm.
When she started in common pleas court, she was a floater covering for different judges, but when an opening in McKay's court became available she cemented herself a more permanent fixture in his courtroom.
"I was nervous," Wilson said, recalling a stark contrast between what she'd come to see in a courtroom compared to where she grew up in Columbiana. "I hadn't had much experience with courtrooms. Even crime I hadn't seen much of. There was a lot of learning terms."
As years went on, she bore witness to an evolving crime landscape.
"When I started it was mostly cocaine, then it became heroin over the years and it's become fentanyl now. There's also been some big murder cases."
Navigating the halls of the common pleas court, Wilson said she was fortunate to have worked under McKay.
"He was the best boss you could ever ask for. He was a great guy, smart, fair," she said.
STANDOUT CASES
One case etched in Wilson's mind was the trial of Jason Getsy, a 19-year-old high school dropout who was put to death by lethal injection in 2009 after being convicted for a botched murder-for-hire of businessman Charles Serafino that instead, claimed the life of his mother, 66-year-old Ann Serafino, and left Charles seriously injured at their home in Hubbard Township.
Another she recalled was Thomas Rudge -- a former Fowler fire chief convicted and sentenced to life for the murder of his wife, Shirley Rudge, 44, and Robert Sawtelle. As presiding judge, McKay sentenced Rudge to 36 years to life.
"It seemed like a really rough case where the guy had an easy, straight-going life, never been in trouble and was in a bad situation where he got angry and killed two people," Wilson said.
The case garnered so much publicity in Trumbull County that Wilson said it had to be tried in Ravenna.
Most of the capital cases are ones that stand out but the cases involving kids were the most upsetting, she said, noting stress from trying to detach from those cases played a key factor in her decision.
"Sometimes you're in court for days on a murder case. It's also physically tiring," Wilson said.
The remedy could be yoga as Wilson said it's possible it has helped her over the years to keep the sharpness to sit and concentrate for long hours.
Over the years, McKay, who joined the bench in 1987, said he and Wilson's partnership developed to where the two knew one another "like wearing a glove."
"She knew what I was going to do, and I knew what she was going to do. I valued her opinion," McKay said, recalling how he'd often lean on her advice of the credibility of female witnesses.
"I wanted to know what her take was because she's a woman and her take may have differed from mine," the retired judge said.
McKay called the guidance of an experienced court reporter, "invaluable," especially for new judges taking the bench.
Still remaining active as a visiting judge, McKay offered advice to Wilson in her newfound retirement, "Keep active, make new friends, make new peeps, that would be my advice for her."
"I was really happy to see a woman on the bench before I left," Wilson said, referring to Judge Cynthia Rice, who in November 2022 became the first woman judge elected to the common pleas bench in Trumbull County.