A judge in Ohio on Tuesday dismissed the murder case filed against the brother of Olympian Simone Biles. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg ruled that prosecutors did not present evidence to sustain a conviction against Tevin Biles-Thomas.
Biles-Thomas, a U.S. Army soldier, was on trial facing multiple counts of murder, voluntary manslaughter, felonious assault and perjury in connection with the deaths of three men on New Year’s Eve in 2018.
Moments after Judge Synenberg issued her ruling, a woman in the court gallery ran towards the defendant and screamed “You killed my baby!” Three sheriff’s deputies restrained the woman before she could reach 26-year-old Biles-Thomas. Authorities later identified the woman as the mother of one of the murder victims.
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“Following a ruling in The State of Ohio vs Tevin Biles-Thomas (CR-19-643478-A), a person in the gallery charged toward the defendant. The Court thanks the Sheriff’s Department for their assistance,” a spokesperson for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas told 3News in an email.
On December 31, 2018, a shooting happened at a house party near Denison Avenue and West 45th Street in Cleveland. According to the police, a group of people who were not invited showed up at the house party. They were asked to leave, leading to a fight and gunfire. Devaughn Gibson, 23, DelVaunte Johnson, 19, and Toshon Banks, 21, died after they were each shot multiple times. Gibson was Biles-Thomas’ cousin.
Biles-Thomas has said he is innocent. Last month, his first trial ended in a mistrial after jurors said “they had read legal paperwork that inadvertently was included in evidence given to them to review,” ABC7 reported.
In September 2019, Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles publicly communicated about her brother being charged for murder via her Twitter account. She said her “heart aches for everyone involved”.
Biles-Thomas joined the army in 2014 and was deployed to Korea in 2018 as part of a rotational deployment. He is one of Simone Biles’s four siblings. Their mother was addicted to drugs and alcohol when they were children. They were in foster care before their mother’s father, Ronald, came for them.
