Staff photo / Ed Runyan Defense attorney Aaron Meikle, left, and his client, Kenyon D. Kellum, 52, watch a video Monday of the confrontation between Kellum and another man in November in Niles while Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Trapp plays the video. Kellum is on trial for attempted murder and other charges.

WARREN — A young couple with their infant child in the car sitting in a parking lot along Youngstown Road Nov. 5 may be the key to whether Kenyon D. Kellum, 52, is convicted of attempted murder and felonious assault in the jury trial that began Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

Not only did Nathan Kimple and Alexandra Neuman see Kellum stab a man on the sidewalk in front of the Subway restaurant along Youngstown Road, across the street from the Village Center Plaza in Niles, but Neuman videotaped it.

Neuman’s video played a key role in the evidence presented Monday, just as Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Trapp said it would during opening statements in the trial, which resumes today in the courtroom of Judge Sarah Thomas Kovoor.

Trapp said the video shows that Kellum “violently and unnecessarily attacked and stabbed” the victim “in the neck, his upper torso near vital organs” and “he bled so profusely that he may never fully function ever again.” The victim’s injuries are too severe for him to testify, Trapp said.

Trapp’s opposing counsel, defense attorney Aaron Meikle, who represents Kellum, said Kellum acted in “lawful self defense.” Meikle said Kellum is accountable for his actions, and the victim is accountable too — “for approaching strangers, for escalating and continuing a confrontation and for refusing to disengage when he had multiple opportunities to do so.”

Meikle said Kellum and his girlfriend had just finished dinner at the Subway restaurant.

“They did not know (the victim). They were not looking for trouble. They were minding their own business and (the victim) approached them, not the other way around,” he said.

Trapp, meanwhile, said, “What you’re going to hear is (Kellum and the victim) did not know each other. They were essentially two ships passing each other in the day, so to speak. What you are going to hear and see is that an argument started outside the (Subway).” And “words are exchanged.”

But what jurors will see in the video is that Kellum’s girlfriend handed Kellum a knife, and for about 90 seconds the two men were posturing and “jawing at each other.” Trapp said, “You will see (Kellum) stab (the victim) very, very hard in an overhand motion … near the clavicle,” Trapp said. “The State feels you will find that he didn’t have to do this.”

Neuman testified that she and Kimple were Door Dashing, and were waiting for Door Dash orders to be sent to their phone for them to deliver. Neither she nor Kimple could hear what was said between the victim and Kellum, making it hard to know who started the fight.

Under questioning by Trapp, Neuman said that about 3 p.m., she saw the victim walk past her car. She said it was unusual because he was “talking with his hands in the air.” He had walked down Youngstown Road and across Youngstown Road from the GetGo gas station into the parking lot where she and Kimple were sitting in their car, she said.

When Trapp asked about the moment that the man “approached” Kellum and his girlfriend, Neuman said the man “walked up to them.” She did hear one thing, she said. “Right before it kind of escalated, (the victim) had done some moves and then screamed,” she said.

Trapp asked what happened after the victim and the couple “met up,” and Neuman said, “They were arguing,” and then the woman handed a knife to Kellum. When the stabbing happened, she was filming a video that was a little over a minute long. She made two more short videos. She was not able to make longer ones because of the social media app SnapChat she was using.

When Trapp asked her if she thought the stabbing was “necessary” or “justified,” she said no.

When she was questioned by Meikle, Neuman agreed that when she was talking to 911 to report the incident, she said she thought the victim instigated the confrontation.

When Trapp asked about her remark about who instigated the confrontation, she noted that she was “freshly post-partum” and was still recovering.

When Kimple, 20, testified, he said he saw more of what the victim did on his way down Youngstown Road to the area where Kimple and Neuman were than Neuman did. “He was kind of just making motions with his hands, talking.”

Kimple watched the victim walk right beside his car and toward the sidewalk in front of the Subway restaurant where Kellum and the woman were. “It looked … like he was walking by and then he just walked over. I’m not sure if they said anything to him or he said anything to them.” KImple said it looked like the victim “was trying to go through the plaza to behind the building.”

Kimple saw a confrontation start and told Neuman to record it, he said. At the beginning, it looked like just words were being said. Then he saw the knife changing hands. Then “the distance between them closed.” Kimple agreed that during the confrontation of about 90 seconds, he did not see the victim do anything physical to Kellum.

Trapp asked him if he saw Kellum at any point “try to back off or otherwise withdraw from the situation,” and Kimple said no.

Meikle asked Kimple if it’s correct that the victim “actually gets in (Kellum’s) face,” and Kimple agreed that he did.