Menu
Oberlin man bound over on murder charges
OBERLIN -- Decatur County District Magistrate Judge John Bremer found probable cause Friday morning to believe that Dylan Robert Coryell Jr. of Oberlin, Kansas, killed a 22-year-old U.S. Airman home on leave in mid-October 2011, and bound Coryell over to face charges of first degree premeditated murder in district court.
Coryell, 24 years old, is charged with the death of Corey Ryan Cook, 22, also of Oberlin, who died of a shotgun blast to the head following a night of partying, beer-drinking, beer games, threats of fist fights and what Coryell's attorney described as many "agitated" and "angry" cell phone text messages.
Coryell sat in the courtroom in Oberlin, his head down, his eyes shielded by his hands or his fists pressed into his eyes. Occasionally, he shook his head from side to side, or looked up to talk to his attorney.
Sometime during the night of Oct. 15, 2011, Coryell is believed to have shot Corey Cook as Cook lay in bed with a dark-haired girl who was just weeks into a new relationship with Cook and at the same time having what she described as a "complicated" relationship with Coryell.
Sarah Campbell told those in the courtroom that she started a relationship with Corey Cook on Sept. 11, 2011, while he was in Security Forces Technical School at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Campbell testified that the relationship started, "even though he wasn't here (in Oberlin)," through text messages and Facebook and on the telephone.
Toward the end of September, Campbell said, her ongoing relationship with Dylan Coryell became "complicated. We had had sex, so we were more than just friends." She said that Dylan told her he wished he could tell people they were dating, but that she "just laughed it off. I was undecided." It was in early October, Campbell said, when Cook came home on leave, that she told him about Coryell. She testified that she was still with Dylan Coryell, and that the relationship was "still complicated."
Sarah Campbell said she discussed the situation with her friend, Jordan Urban, who had, at one time, also dated Corey Cook. Campbell was living with Jordan and her husband, Everett, at that time, but was in the process of moving her things to Ryan McEvoy's rural Jennings, Kansas, house, in Decatur County east of Oberlin.
Ryan McEvoy testified that Corey Cook was his "best friend," and that he had mutual friends with Dylan Coryell.
Everett Urban testified that he and Corey Cook had text-messaged about fighting because Everett Urban had asked Cook to stop texting and talking to his wife, but that Cook said he "had a history" with Jordan and that he could talk to her if he wanted to. Urban said there was also "bad blood" between him and Cook because Cook said "he was going to put a shotgun in my vehicle (with a note saying) 'don't miss this time'," because, Urban said, "I shot myself before."
The fight between Urban and Corey Cook had been arranged for the evening of Oct. 15 at "the hog units," Urban said, but that Cook did not show up.
Urban testified that at a beer party, at Andrew Richards' house, he calmed down but that Dylan Coryell became angry because Sarah Campbell was with Corey Cook at Ryan McEvoy's house, so Urban, Coryell and another friend, Killion Dellere, drove to McEvoy's so that Coryell and Cook could fight.
At Ryan McEvoy's house, friends had spent the evening drinking beer, playing a drinking game called "beer pong" and shooting off McEvoy's .410 single-shot shotgun, .22 caliber rifle and .22 caliber handgun.
McEvoy testified that the house was owned by his grandparents and that he and his grandparents had an arrangement that he would keep up the buildings and the yard. Ryan McEvoy testified that he had the habit of inviting any number of friends over, and some had an open invitation to spend the night. Dylan Coryell was among friends who had come to McEvoy's at times and had spent at least one night there, McEvoy said. McEvoy testified that he was not in the habit of locking the house, although he had posted "No Trespassing" signs at the driveway near the county road.
Ryan McEvoy said he held the box of .410 shells as friends shot the shotgun and that a friend named Danielle was the last to shoot it the evening of Oct. 15. He testified that neither he nor she had reloaded it. He carried it into the house and propped it beside a gun cabinet, believing, he said, that it was unloaded.
Shortly before and after midnight, inside McEvoy's house, everyone had gone to sleep.
Dakota Cook, Corey's younger brother, testified that he had fallen asleep in a recliner in the living room and woke up when someone, he believed it to be Killion Dellere, "wanted to know where everyone was at." Dakota Cook said he woke again to what he thought was a gunshot.
Urban testified that he and Coryell and Dellere drove the 10-15 minutes to Ryan McEvoy's house. He said that when he walked inside the house, he saw a shotgun in the dining room beside the entry to the hallway, picked it up and checked to make sure it wasn't loaded. Why did you check the gun, Barrett asked, and Urban said, "because of a text, about him killing me, (a text) from Corey Cook."
Urban testified that he then took the gun away from Dylan Coryell and put it back, but, as he (Urban) walked away, he saw Coryell aiming the gun into the bedroom.
Urban testified that as he and Dellere reached the front door, he heard a gunshot. Urban returned to the bedroom where he saw Corey Cook had been shot and that he smelled gun powder. Outside, Urban testified, Dylan Coryell told him that he had shot Corey Cook and that he was going to jail. "He told me he didn't know the gun was loaded and that it was an accident," Urban said.
Sarah Campbell testified that she woke up when she heard "Corey making gurgling noises. I looked at him and there was blood all over his face. I thought he had a bloody nose, but he wouldn't wake up."
Sarah testified that she ran outside screaming, where she found Dylan Coryell, Killion Dellere, Everett Urban and Corey's younger brother, Dakota.
"Dylan said it was all his fault ... that he needed to kill himself," Campbell testified.
Dakota testified that he went back inside to the back bedroom. Struggling with the memory and with tears close to the surface, Dakota said he found Corey in bed with blood on his face. He said he smelled gun powder, but he did not see a gun.
Prosecuting attorney Nicole Romine told Judge Bremer that on the evening of Oct. 15 and early morning of Oct. 16, Dylan Coryell was "hanging out with Killion Dellere and Everett Urban in an atmosphere of anger."
She continued, "In the early morning hours, three entered the (McEvoy) house and went to the back bedroom. Everett Urban testified that there were two shotguns, but Ryan McEvoy said there was a single .410 shotgun and that the ammo was on top of the gun cabinet."
"You heard Everett Urban say that he saw Dylan Coryell pick up the gun and that he heard a shot, and that Dylan Coryell said he shot Mr. Cook," Romine said.
The autopsy indicates, she said, that Corey Cook died of a "deep-penetrating gunshot wound to the left side of his head."
Justin Barrett told Judge Bremer that evidence fails to show intent or premeditation. "Yes, an intent to fight," he said, "To bruise each other up, settle their differences. let the past go ... a simple battery, nothing more."
Dylan Coryell, among any number of Ryan McEvoy's other friends, "was allowed to come over ... stay overnight even," Barrett said.
Barrett asked that felony murder charges be dismissed, saying that Corey Cook's death was "an accident ... a tragic accident ... just that."
After deliberating for about 10 minutes, Judge Bremer found that there is indeed evidence to believe that a murder occurred on Oct. 15 in Decatur County and that there is probable cause to believe that Dylan Coryell caused that murder.
Coryell faces first degree premeditated murder charges, as well as aggravated battery, for the injuries to Sarah Campbell, (who testified that a gun shot pellet remains in her left shoulder) and aggravated burglary, for entering a building with the intent to commit a felony.