Staff photo / Ed Runyan Kenyon D. Kellum, left, sat in a chair and answered questions Tuesday in his attempted-murder trial. At right is Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Trapp, asking Kellum questions as Trapp showed video of the confrontation between Kellum and a man Kellum stabbed Nov. 5, 2025. outside of a Niles restaurant.

WARREN — Testimony at the end of Kenyon D. Kellum’s attempted murder trial took dramatic turns late Tuesday as Kellum took the stand claiming self defense and the victim’s father and surgeon told jurors how serious the victim’s injuries were and still are.

Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Trapp told jurors in opening statements that the man Kellum, 52, stabbed Nov. 5 on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant in the Gentry Plaza in Niles was not able to testify in the trial because of his injuries, but it took the testimony of a surgeon to show how true that is.

Dr. Benjamin Biteman of St. Joseph Warren Hospital testified that he performed emergency surgery on the 37-year-old victim the afternoon he was brought to the hospital with a stab wound in the left shoulder. But because the stab wound traveled so far down, it caused the area around his heart to fill with blood, causing cardiac arrest and requiring emergency surgery to save his life.

Trapp asked Biteman: “Overall this type of injury, is it one with a significant risk of death, this penetrating wound?”

“Yes, I would say he did pass away. We did resuscitate him,” Biteman said. “From the cardiac arrest, he was dead for a period of time. We resuscitated him and got him back.”

As defense attorney Aaron Meikle questioned Biteman, he asked what the medical records said about the victim having a history of alcohol use. Biteman said that was not part of the treatment he was providing to the man. But in “interpreting” what records indicated, after Biteman resuscitated the man, the rest of the medical team that handled the man’s care afterward was watching for “brain injury and alcohol withdrawal.”

The next witness was the victim’s father, who lives south of the Pittsburgh area and works with the sheriff’s office in his county and was a Pennsylvania state trooper for 23 years. He said his son was an “accomplished baseball player” and was a junior college All-American baseball player.

He said he and his wife kept in touch with their son most days by phone so when they did not hear from him Nov. 5, he and his wife became a little concerned. His wife found an article the next day about an unidentified man who had been stabbed. It led to a couple phone calls that allowed them to tell Niles authorities that the man was their son.

He and his wife drove to Ohio and stayed a couple of weeks. His son was initially treated in Warren, but then went to the St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital intensive care unit for a couple of weeks. He is now at UPMC in a neurological rehab program that focuses on “people who are victims of brain injuries,” he said.

The program tries to help the patient move from “a state of having their eyes open but no real connection to the next level of perception of what is going on and connecting with people.” He is “profoundly disabled” and cannot communicate, his father said.

He said his son “struggled with sobriety” and “worked on it continuously.” His son’s issues were not so much related to mental health, he said.

Under cross examination by Meikle, the victim’s father said he thinks his son was in the Niles area for alcohol rehab and checked himself into a facility and was “looking for work at an Italian restaurant.”

After that testimony, the State rested, meaning it had no further witnesses. After some discussion between Kellum, Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Sarah Thomas Kovoor and Meikle, Kellum said he was going to testify.

KELLUM

Kellum said he was originally from the Warren area but spent many years in the Oakland-Richmond, California area. He was in the Warren area to visit family for two to three months at the time of this incident. In the San Francisco Bay area, he worked as a security guard and was a baker at Noah’s New York Bagels, based in Oakland. He was planning to return to California on Nov. 8, he said.

He and his girlfriend from the Warren-Youngstown area were traveling on WRTA buses because he did not have a car. He and the woman went to a marijuana dispensary in Youngstown on Nov. 5 before the incident in Niles happened. Then they rode the bus to Niles and went to the Subway restaurant for food. He did not consume any of the marijuana that day, he said.

He said he usually carries a pocket knife in his back pants pocket, but his pants were thin and he didn’t like the knife there, so he handed it to his girlfriend to hold for him. He bought the knife in Richmond, California, because “it can get kind of aggressive in California,” he said.

He and the woman were on the sidewalk outside of the Subway restaurant waiting to catch the bus when he came in contact with the victim. “We was approached by a guy,” Kellum said. “When he first approached, he told me ‘Don’t ever disrespect’ him,'” Kellum said. Kellum was not watching the man walk up because he has a detached retina in his left eye and cannot see in that eye.

“He had said something to my girl,” Kellum said, adding that he told the man to leave. “He got real aggressive and he didn’t leave and he just started threatening me and threatening my girl.” Kellum said he took off his jacket and hat, hoping it would make the man leave. He said the man said, “Today is the day we’re going to die.”

Kellum said he was scared, and he asked his girlfriend to give him the knife. “I pulled it out and showed it and I told him he better leave,” Kellum said.

When Trapp cross examined Kellum, he pulled up the videos on a monitor showing the interaction between Kellum and the other man. Kovoor had the man come closer to the monitor because of his vision problem, and Kellum sat in a chair with Meikle behind him.

For about 20 minutes, Trapp showed the video and asked Kellum question after question as to what the victim did that would have provoked Kellum to stab him. When Trapp asked for specific statements the man made, Kellum said. “He said I was going to die and he was going to send me to hell.”

Trapp said, “Clearly he was capable of doing that right, because he had a weapon on him. He showed a gun, right?”

“No sir,” Kellum replied. “I don’t know what it was.”

Trapp said, “You watched the video the last couple days,” adding, “You could obviously see he had nothing on him, right?”

“I believe he had something in his hand,” Kellum said.

Trapp asked Kellum why he and his girlfriend left the area and did not call 911 or stay behind to talk to police after he stabbed the man.

Kellum said he was sure someone else would call the police. He said he finally left when the police did not come right away like he expected them to, so he put on his coat and they walked across the street.

The trial resumes today.