LISBON — Tyrell Travers “said that he had got Action,” according to his former girlfriend, Alexis Teter.

Teter testified Thursday in the aggravated murder trial of Travers, 25, who’s accused of killing Dion McMillon, 26, also known as Action, on the night of May 19, 2021 on Mapletree Street in East Liverpool.

When asked by Columbiana County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Weikart how the defendant was acting when he said “that he had got Action,” Teter responded “pleased in a way.”

That’s how the third day of the trial against Travers began in Common Pleas Court on Thursday with Judge Megan Bickerton presiding. Travers was indicted in January 2022 for aggravated murder and murder, both unclassified felonies with a firearms specification, and for tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony.

Teter, who lives in Girard now, was living with Savannah Curnett in Struthers at the time of the murder and talked about what she knew about that day and about Travers, saying she heard about Action from him and not in a pleasant way. She said Travers told her Action had robbed him at some point years ago of money and a cell phone.

On May 19, 2021, she told Savannah she would be spending the night where Travers lived, at his grandma’s residence on Clover Avenue, Wellsville. That evening she met him at El Paso in Calcutta for dinner and he was driving a white box-type rental car. When they left, he told her to go to Wellsville and he had to drop something off and would meet her there. She said she didn’t know what was going on when he called her later to say they’re going to stay in Struthers and for her to drive up there. When he arrived in Struthers in that white box-type car, which had been identified by other witnesses as a Kia Soul, she said he had a bag and he asked Savannah to burn it in her fire pit, but she said no. They left and he was on the phone and she said he was talking about getting rid of something. She was asked what he was saying about a gun and she replied “something about throwing it in a river.”

Teter talked about how he had her buy a gun for him on May 21, 2021, and how he told her police would be calling her and told her to say they got dinner in Boardman and stayed in Boardman. She then admitted she lied to police at the time and was scared, saying Travers said he would kill her if she went against him.

Under cross examination by defense attorney Walter Madison, who asked if she was an admitted liar, she said her conscience made her tell the truth and that at the time, she lied for her safety. He made a point of saying that here she was testifying and “obviously you’re alive.”

The subject of lies came up a lot during the testimony of Darin Morgan, an investigator with the county Prosecutor’s Office who was a detective captain with the East Liverpool Police Department at the time of the homicide and was lead investigator on the case.

Morgan’s testimony, under questioning by Assistant Prosecutor Steve Yacovone, took half of the morning and all afternoon, regarding the crime scene, the search of the victim’s car, interviews with various witnesses, an interview with the defendant and phone records which corroborated what both Teter and Curnett said and showed the defendant was lying about his whereabouts on May 19, 2021.

When he interviewed Travers with his attorney at the time, James Wise, on May 25, 2021, Morgan described Travers as kind of smug and arrogant. He said he knew there was a shooting, but that’s all he knew, but then Morgan found a video on Teter’s phone showing Travers looking at a story about the shooting in the East Liverpool Review.

He claimed he didn’t know Dion McMillon, yet there were numerous photos of McMillon on Travers’ phone. There was also a meme of a cartoon with the victim’s head that said he was dead and a video that had the victim’s head attached to a video with a rap song playing in the background that said something about the opps and looking both ways.

Travers said he didn’t have any rental car. When shown the rental agreement, he told Morgan he didn’t know what he was talking about. There was video of Travers at Sheetz getting in and out of the white Kia Soul that he rented, about an hour and a half before the shooting. There was also video of that car pulling up in front of Walmart and his grandmother getting out of the car on the passenger side that day.

He also claimed that he was in Struthers all day and that he and Teter went to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse in Boardman, but there was no record of any credit card receipts from there. During cross examination, Madison questioned if they could have paid cash. Phone records placed him in the East Liverpool and Wellsville are all day on May 19, 2021 until late that night, after the shooting, when he went to Struthers.

In talking about the defendant’s phone records, Morgan said there was a lot of activity, then there was a lull between 9:50 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. May 19, 2021. Investigators believe the shooting occurred at 10:30 p.m. and there was video that showed the moment of the shooting, with several flashes of light and bangs. Then there was a phone call made at 10:33 p.m.

“All the evidence has pointed to the defendant, Tyrell Travers,” Morgan said.

Throughout testimony on Thursday, there were several times that Madison objected and during the testimony of Morgan, there were several sidebar discussions with the judge, including during the cross examination by Madison.

At some point, Madison asked Morgan about firearm transactions for Travers and questioned if he heard there was a 40-caliber purchased by Travers. The bullets and shell casings in the case were identified as 40-caliber.

That prompted a lengthy sidebar, with Bickerton having the jury leave the room for about half an hour, then she brought them back in to dismiss them for the night.

“Issues have arisen the court needs to address,” she said.

Other witnesses included East Palestine Police Detective Dan Haueter who testified about extracting information from cell phones belonging to the defendant, Teter and Curnett, Calcutta Sheetz store manager Savannah Delwiche regarding surveillance video from May 19, 2021 and Hertz Rental company security team member Arthur Giles, who testified about a rental agreement for Tyrell Travers for a while Kia Soul that he rented May 17, 2021 and then returned on May 20, 2021.

Testimony was expected to continue today.

mgreier@mojonews.com