Never-before-seen texts, photos, more shed new light into life and death of Jayland Walker
Jayland Walker’s death last summer shattered Akron, Ohio.
How could a 25-year-old DoorDash driver – a Black man with no criminal history and a single speeding ticket – die in a barrage of 94 bullets fired by police?
After a grand jury declined to charge the eight officers who fatally shot Walker, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost quickly released thousands of pages of documents, videos and photographs gathered during the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation's probe.
In the weeks since, the Akron Beacon Journal has read, watched, reviewed and analyzed each item in the BCI investigative file, along with other court records, traffic accident reports and articles in the Beacon Journal archives connected to the shooting or people it touched.
That information, combined with a recent 90-minute interview with Walker family attorney Bobby DiCello, provides the clearest insight into Walker, the night police shot him and the aftermath, a tragedy that has forever changed Akron.
Memorial Day weekend road trip ends in tragedy for Jaymeisha Beasley
Last year, May 27 seemed like the perfect night for a road trip − cool, calm and clear.
It was the Friday leading into a long Memorial Day weekend, and Jaymeisha Beasley and her family were moving Jaymeisha’s 20-year-old sister from Akron to Kentucky, where she was going to live with family.
At 10:16 p.m., Jaymeisha texted Jayland, her fiancee, with an update: “We had FINALLY hit the road be there about 1240.”
Jayland, who had dropped off two pizzas for the Beasley family earlier, was wrapping up his job delivering meals for DoorDash and Uber Eats around Greater Akron that night.
At 10:23 p.m. he texted back: “Just did my last dash…I’m bout to stop by my mom real quick and then go home.”
The young couple – she was 27, he was 25 – continued texting, sharing a few details about their nights with each other, along with laughing emojis, until 11:45 p.m.
About 90 minutes later, a semitractor truck smashed into the back of the Ford E-150 van carrying Jaymeisha and her family on Interstate 71 south in Warren County, about 35 miles from the Kentucky state line.
A camera inside the truck's cab showed the driver looked away from the road six times in the moments before he rear-ended the van, sending it spinning off the right side of the freeway where it hit a guardrail, a state Highway Patrol report said.
The force of the crash shattered the van windows and sent Jaymeisha flying through the rear doors onto the pavement of the southbound lanes, where another driver ran her over and drove away.
Jaymeisha died there about 1:20 a.m.
Airbags deployed in the front of the van, but her mom, sister and an Akron man driving were all injured and taken to a nearby hospital.
Jayland had no idea.
At 1:23 a.m., three minutes after Jaymeisha died, Jayland texted her, apologizing for not responding earlier: “my bad i thought I texted .. man is yoll close?”
There was no reply.
At 4:50 a.m. Jayland texted Jaymeisha again: “Goodnight Bae sleep tight” with a yawning emoji.
At 5:41 a.m., Jayland texted: “Lmk (let me know) when you wake up or whatever.”
There was still no reply.
High school sweethearts had big plans for their future
Jayland and Jaymeisha were sweethearts since 11th grade.
He went to Buchtel High School and she to Kenmore. It’s not clear how they first met.
In high school, Jayland was a standout in wrestling and baseball. In 2014, he was mentioned the Beacon Journal twice: in February for winning his wrestling weight class, 160 pounds, in the City Series Duals Championship and again in June, when he represented Buchtel at the Summit County High School All-Star Baseball Game in downtown Akron at Canal Park.
Jaymeisha, whose family called her Jella Beas, said on Facebook she was in four spelling bees during school and loved to dance during high school.
After graduation, Jayland worked for a while at Performance Health, a medical and physical therapy supply manufacturer, Amazon and delivering meals. But Jayland was also reading up on how to launch his own business, DiCello said.
Jayland wanted to start his own delivery or drop-shipping service, acting as a middleman between buyers and sellers.
Jaymeisha, meanwhile, became a licensed pharmacy technician in 2018.
That same year, Jayland’s father, Edward “Pete” Walker, died. He was a longtime union construction worker, and though he and Jayland’s mom divorced in 2002 – when Jayland was about 6 and his older sister was about 9 – records show they remained close.
Probate records show Jayland inherited at least one thing: his father’s 2005 Buick Century.
Jayland and Jaymeisha, meanwhile, settled into a tidy ranch house they rented on Kohler Avenue in between Interstate 76 and West Waterloo Road in Akron’s Kenmore neighborhood.
Around 2021, Jayland proposed marriage and, to no one’s surprise, Jaymeisha accepted.
Photos posted online show them standing together, smiling under a palm tree. Jaymeisha was so petite − her Ohio driver's license says she's 4 feet 9 inches − the top of her head only reached the middle of Jayland’s chest.
Jayland, court records show, had an excellent 753 credit rating when his father died and qualified for a $90,000 home loan.
He and Jaymeisha were looking for a fixer-upper duplex that they could renovate while living on one side and renting the other.
They also planned to start a family.
It was the American dream.
'How do I continue to go on?'
Jaymeisha’s death changed everything.
When Jayland arrived at the hospital where Jaymeisha’s mom and sister were, the devastation was clear, Loreal Redrick, one of Jaymeisha’s sisters, later told BCI investigators.
Jayland, she said, was leaning against a hospital wall and slid down onto the floor, asking: “How do I breathe? How do I continue to go on?”
Jayland continued texting Jaymeisha, who was listed as “wife” in his phone.
On May 30, he told her: “I love you so much (heart emoji) me everything.”
That same day, he also searched Google for “what happens when you drink bleach,” the first of several similar searches that investigators believe could point to Jayland wanting to kill himself, records show.
Both Jayland’s and Jaymeisha’s families tried to build a net of support for Jayland, sending daily check-in texts, invitations to eat or messages of love. They arrived so frequently, the texts and phone calls often overlapped.
On June 1, Jayland’s best friend, Dupri Whatley, reached out to him, too.
The two grew up together. Both wrestled for Buchtel. While Jayland dreamed of starting a business, his best friend pursued a career in law enforcement.
Whatley was working as a Summit County sheriff’s deputy at the jail but aimed to soon join a police department, where he could work on the streets.
On this day, he just wanted to know if Jayland was OK.
Jayland texted his reply: “Yea I’m Alive I guess.”
Jayland Walker researches travel to far-off lands, visits gun range
Jayland was having trouble sleeping, he told friends and family.
On June 6, at 4:15 a.m., he started searching Google again – not about bleach or dying this time, but about traveling far away:
“How much is a one way ticket to africa.”
“Flights from CLE to Africa on June 22, 2022”
“How much is a one way ticket to giza egypt”
Jayland, however, didn’t book a flight.
The next afternoon, Whatley saw Jayland driving on an Akron freeway and reached out again, asking Jayland to join him and a friend who were going to target shoot at a gun range.
“Coming to the gun range will probably help you shoot some stress out,” Whatley recalled telling Jayland.
Whatley had invited Jayland to the range before, but Jayland never seemed interested. This time, however, Jayland accepted and they went to Range USA on Killian Road, just the other side of Interstate 77 from where Jaymeisha had worked at a Walmart pharmacy.
No one, including Whatley, had ever seen Jayland with a gun. But until that day, Whatley didn’t know how inexperienced Jayland was with weapons.
At the range, the two shot a Glock 17, a semi-automatic pistol that’s used by many police.
Jayland “didn't know how to load the gun and loaded the bullets in the wrong way,” Whatley said.
Whatley even had to show Jayland how to hold a gun.
That was three days before Jaymeisha’s funeral.
'His world was like crumbling before his eyes'
When Rhoden Memorial Home announced Jaymeisha’s coming home services would be June 10, people posted tributes on Rhoden’s website.
People said they would remember her “sweet soul” and beaming smile.
“You were so bright, loving and kind,” Jaymeisha’s cousin Sierra Goodwin wrote.
The staff at the pharmacy where Jaymeisha worked – inside the Walmart on South Arlington Road – sent a large tabletop arrangement of pink flowers and pillar candles. “Jay will be greatly missed,” a note said. The staff also planted a tree in Jaymeisha’s name, writing that she would “always be part of our pharmacy family.”
Less than 12 hours before Jaymeisha’s funeral, Jayland again searched Google for “drinking bleach.”
He searched for that same phrase 10 minutes later, followed by two searches for “quickest ways to die” at 12:45 a.m. and 12:46 a.m.
Jaymeisha’s service was scheduled to begin at noon at Rhoden on Palmetto Avenue not far from the Akron Fulton Airport.
Jayland’s sister, Jada, held Jayland’s hand, but he was inconsolable, Redrick, one of Jaymeisha’s sisters, would later recall.
“He couldn’t believe it, he was very stretched out like, even at the funeral, like he wasn’t in his seat, like he’s laid out on the floor at you know the funeral home,” Redrick told investigators.
It was the same at the cemetery, where Jayland was “stretched out” and “rolling in the dirt,” she said.
You “just knew that his world was like crumbling before his eyes, you know,” Redrick said.
Yet by the next day, Jayland headed back to work, delivering food.
When people texted him to see how he was coping, he usually told them he was working and trying to stay busy.
That appeared to satisfy many, who encouraged him to get out of the house.
Before those conversations got much deeper, Jayland would usually turn them around and ask how the other person was coping.
“From my understanding it seemed like he was more so trying to make sure everybody else was OK,” Javonna Beasley, another of Jaymeisha’s sisters, would later tell investigators. “Jayland was a sweetheart. He was a sweet person.”
Privately, though, Jayland continued clinging to Jaymeisha.
On June 16, he sent her another text: “Please (praying hands symbol) come back I love you so much I need you Beautiful Baby.”
Jayland also abandoned plans to buy a duplex. He instead struck a deal with his landlord to purchase the Kohler Avenue house where he and Jaymeisha made a home.
But that, too, unraveled. On June 20, a loan agent told Jayland the loan fell through because he had switched jobs from Amazon to gig delivery work since he was first approved.
If he was angry, or deflated, Jayland didn’t show it. He didn’t rant or beg or make promises he couldn’t keep.
But he did decide to get a gun.
Just after being turned down for the loan, he searched Google for Range USA Akron, where he and Whatley fired a Glock 17 earlier that month.
At 4 p.m. June 20, Jayland headed to Range USA and bought his own Glock, a slightly different model – a Glock 45 9 mm – that is also favored by police.
'I pray for you day and night'
Jayland’s family was worried. They didn’t know he bought a gun, but they knew Jayland was deep in grief.
On June 11, his sister, Jada, texted him that she’d call as soon as she left a movie theater.
“Breath. Park your car if you have to, THINK CLEARLY. It’s okay. We LOVE YOU!” Jada texted, encouraging her brother to go to family if he needed help.
In coming days, his mom and sister tried to lure him over for homemade vegetable soup. It’s unclear if he went.
Jayland was still working and responding to people calling and texting him, but life had changed.
He couldn’t even watch TV anymore, he told his mom June 25 after she invited him over to hang out.
“It reminds me of her .. (that’s why I) mainly just work and read or something,” Jayland said, assuring his mom it was “not a big deal It just TV.”
His mom responded to Jayland: “I pray for you day and night that god helps you through this and try to give you some peace. I love you so much Jayland.”
Encounters with police in New Franklin and Akron
About 2:30 a.m. June 26, about five hours after his mom said she was praying for him, a New Franklin police officer noticed Jayland’s 2005 Buick Century heading south on Manchester Road.
Officer Robert Wagner was parked at a lot near West Turkeyfoot Road and intended to stop Jayland’s Buick after noticing it had a burned-out taillight and missing license plate light.
Hardly anyone was on the road that early in the morning, but when Wagner pulled onto Manchester Road, there was another car between him and the Buick.
Before Wagner could reach the Buick, the driver pulled into a Subway parking lot, turned around and drove north toward Akron. Wagner turned around, too, and followed, this time flipping on his overhead lights.
The Buick’s driver immediately pulled over, but just as Wagner was about to put his cruiser in park, the Buick drove off again.
Wagner initially thought the driver intended to pull over on a nearby side street, but the Buick kept heading north on Manchester, often straying across the white lines, slowing down and speeding up, but never reaching speeds of more than 49 mph on the road with a 45 mph limit.
The bizarre chase ended less than a minute after it began. Wagner cut it off when the Buick crossed out of New Franklin into neighboring Coventry Township.
New Franklin police entered the Buick’s license plate number, a description of the driver – whom they believed to be a white man wearing a black hoodie pulled over his head – and information about the chase into a database police across Summit County share.
New Franklin police intended to follow up, but never got the chance.
At 10:23 a.m., about eight hours after the chase, one of Jaymeisha’s sisters texted Jayland, asking how he was doing.
Jayland didn’t respond until 12:38 p.m. “I’m alright just be working..Just now getting up. How you been feeling tho.”
Jayland next fielded calls from his sister, mother and grandmother. The call with his mom lasted longest, five minutes and 58 seconds, records showed.
It’s not clear what they talked about, but Jayland’s mom sent him a text immediately after: “I didn’t mean to upset you Jayland, it was only a suggestion. I know this is very hard for you. I love you that’s all.”
Jayland responded:: “I know you good mom it really all Good love you too.”
Jayland didn’t make any food deliveries that day. About 8 p.m., he drove to the Walmart where Jaymeisha had worked and bought a Minute Maid grape punch and large bag of Blue Diamond honey roasted almonds and headed home.
When his sister reached out again at 9:08 p.m., asking how his day was and whether he ate, he responded “It alright. Ate a Lil bit. How you feeling.”
But Jayland didn’t stay home that night.
Cellphone records show he left Kohler Avenue about 10:04 p.m. and headed south toward the Akron-Canton Airport.
About 25 minutes later, he chatted with his mom for about three minutes and looked on Google maps for areas around Green, which is on the other side of Nimisila Reservoir from New Franklin, where his car was in a chase during the wee hours of that morning.
At 11:14 p.m., Jayland drove to the same spot where New Franklin police tried to stop his car and then headed back to Akron, where he withdrew $60 from the Huntington Bank ATM on Kenmore Boulevard, stopped at a nearby gas station and then cruised around Akron, all over downtown and into North Hill.
Two Akron police officers noticed Jayland’s Buick with a burnt-out license plate and taillight around North Howard Street and Tallmadge Avenue about 12:22 a.m.
As Jayland drove east on Tallmadge, the officers – whose names have been withheld by state and local officials - entered Jayland’s license plate number into their in-car computer.
It showed that Jayland was the licensed owner and there were no outstanding warrants connected to the car. There was a note, however, that a white person driving this car had been involved in a chase in New Franklin.
This driver, police could see, was Black.
By the time the police read the information, Jayland turned right onto the ramp leading to southbound state Route 8.
Police didn’t bother trying to stop him because traffic stops aren’t safe on freeways for police or anyone else and he “didn’t really care too much about the taillight,” one of the officers would later tell investigators.
The two officers continued their patrol, driving a big loop through North Hill and back to where they first saw Jayland’s car.
There, about eight minutes later, they saw the Buick again.
“Why would somebody who has a broken taillight go south on Route 8 and then get back off on whatever exit they took and come right back to the same intersection? Um, to me that didn’t make any sense,” the Akron officer who was in the passenger seat that night later said.
“‘Cause if I had a broken taillight and a cop was behind me and I was going home I would just go home. I wouldn’t come right back to the same spot where I saw a cop,” the officer said. “So, to me something wasn’t right about any of that.”
This time, the officers turned on their overhead lights and tried to stop Jayland.
He didn’t stop, so police said they chirped their siren a few times to make sure he knew the police were behind him.
No one knows what Jayland was thinking.
Was Jaymeisha on his mind and how different his future looked?
Or did he just want to get away?
Less than 24 hours before, Jayland’s car slipped away from New Franklin police during a very brief chase.
Did he think he could do it again in Akron?
Jayland, who was only driving 30 mph on Tallmadge Avenue, didn’t stop for Akron police.
Instead, for the second time that night he turned onto the entrance ramp to Route 8 southbound.
This time, police followed.
Former Akron Beacon Journal reporter Paula Schleis, Canton Repository reporter Tim Botos and Record-Courier reporter Jeff Saunders contributed to this report.