Ohio to EXECUTES Joseph McAlpin for Double Murder,K!lled Couple and Their Dog on Good Friday-Death Row

Ohio to Execute Joseph McAlpin for Double Murder, Killed Couple & Their Dog on Good Friday

In shackles and an orange jumpsuit, Joseph McAlpin showed no remorse and made no apology. “To my parents, I just want to thank you for your patience with me,” he said. The 32-year-old robbed and killed Michael Kuznik and Trina Tomola inside their Collinwood used car dealership in 2017.

“He is a demonic killer. A demonic killer. It’s one thing to rob somebody, but it’s another thing to do what he did. Him and his cohorts, what they are, are predators,” stated authorities.

McAlpin represented himself at trial before a jury convicted him of the crime at Mr. Cars, gunning down the couple and their dog, and stealing cars. It left the neighborhood in fear, says Councilman Mike Polensek: “He’ll be around tomorrow. Mike and Trina aren’t.”

On Tuesday, the judge upheld the jury’s recommendation. “The court is going to impose a sentence of death,” the judge stated, adding that he imposed the death sentence because, in this case, it was the only fitting punishment.

The victims’ family issued a statement saying, in part:

“This has been a heartbreaking and traumatic two years for our family. We sincerely appreciate the outpouring of support we have received from the community. Our hearts will be forever broken, and we are greatly relieved that justice has been served.”

On May 21st, 2019, after a 22-day trial he conducted entirely by himself, Joseph McAlpin was sentenced to death for the murders of two people inside their family-owned car dealership in Cleveland, Ohio. He was 32 years old.

In this account, we are going to walk you through everything: the crime, the evidence, the trial, the sentence, and exactly where he sits today. But to understand any of it, we have to go back to Good Friday, April 14th, 2017, when a couple finishing out their workday placed Easter baskets in their car and made plans to pick up dinner on the way home—and a man with a gun and a plan walked through their front door.

This is the complete story of Joseph McAlpin and the murders at Mr. Cars. From where both sides came from, to the night the evidence led investigators straight to McAlpin’s door, to the unprecedented trial where he stood alone at the defense table without a lawyer, argued for his own life, and lost. All the way to the death sentence he now carries inside an Ohio prison with an execution date on the calendar and the clock still ticking.

The Origins of Joseph McAlpin

Joseph McAlpin was born and raised on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio. The East Side was not one neighborhood; it was a collection of communities that shared the same pressures: high poverty, limited opportunity, and crime that moved through the streets like weather. Some families found ways to hold themselves together inside those conditions. Others did not.

McAlpin’s family did not. The details of his earliest years are the kind that do not require dramatic framing to land with weight; they speak for themselves. He was five years old when he found his mother’s gun. He picked it up. It fired. The bullet struck his own leg. He was rushed for medical attention and survived, but the event left more than a physical scar. It said something plainly about the household he was growing up in—a home where a loaded firearm was within reach of a child who had no understanding of what it was.

That kind of environment does not happen by accident. It is the product of adults whose attention is elsewhere, whose priorities have shifted away from the ordinary work of keeping a child safe. McAlpin grew up in that environment. His mother struggled with heroin addiction. The drug had taken hold of her before he was old enough to understand what addiction was, and it never let go. He grew up watching her disappear into it, watching the person who was supposed to anchor his world become someone unreliable.

His father, John Nelson, was in the picture for a portion of his early childhood, but at some point, Nelson left Cleveland and returned to North Carolina. His older brother left, too. McAlpin was alone in a household that was already struggling, in a neighborhood that offered no soft landing to a child without a stable home.

He was 12 years old when someone hit him in the head with a brick. The blow caused seizures that were not a one-time occurrence; they persisted. A 12-year-old boy suffered a traumatic head injury on the streets of his own neighborhood and was left to manage the consequences in a home that was not equipped to support him through them. The sexual abuse he suffered added another layer to an already fractured foundation.

By the time McAlpin was a teenager, the damage was layered and deep. His juvenile record began to reflect the direction he was heading. Charges came: felonious assault, drug trafficking, escape. He was not yet an adult, but the system had already logged his name multiple times. Then, his mother died. He was 19 years old when he came home and found her body. She had overdosed on heroin. He was the one who discovered her.

After his mother’s death, what remained of McAlpin’s foundation was gone. His father was in North Carolina. His older brother was gone. His mother was dead. He was 19 on the East Side of Cleveland, carrying years of physical injury, trauma, and loss, with no adult support around him.

The 2008 Robbery and Prison Sentence

The juvenile convictions had already begun to build a record. In 2008, that movement brought him before the courts in a way that would define the next decade of his life.

That year, McAlpin and his brother, Java, became involved with a woman named Shanell Jordan. Jordan had gone to a friend’s apartment one evening to have her hair permed. While she was there, McAlpin and Java arrived. Around midnight, Jordan left. She finished at a hair shop around 3:00 in the morning and drove back to the apartment to collect her children. As she stepped out of her car, she dropped her keys. She bent down, picked them up, and straightened back up.

McAlpin was behind her. He wrapped his arm around her neck and pressed a knife against her throat. Both McAlpin and his brother had do-rags pulled over their heads and white shirts drawn up to cover the lower halves of their faces. He told her, “Bitch, don’t say nothing. I’ll kill you.” He pressed the knife hard enough to break the skin. Then he moved. Between the two brothers, they took everything Jordan had: $2,000 in cash, her credit cards, birth certificates, and the lease and title to her car.

Days later, Jordan went to the license bureau to replace her stolen driver’s license and title. A clerk flagged a power of attorney form that had recently been filed in her name. Someone had used her stolen identification to create a legal document granting Joseph McAlpin authority to act on her behalf. A fraudulent vehicle registration bearing both her name and McAlpin’s, listing his address, had also been produced.

She went directly back to the police. Jordan looked at photo arrays and identified McAlpin and his brother. Police traced the forged vehicle registration to McAlpin’s listed address, located the car, and arrested both brothers.

The jury convicted McAlpin on all counts. He received a seven-year sentence. McAlpin spent those years in a cell. He completed his sentence and was processed out in 2016. He walked back into Cleveland as a man in his late 20s with a felony conviction and a gap in any legitimate employment history. He was placed on post-release control. He had been out for less than eight months when April 2017 arrived.

Mr. Cars and The Kuznik Family

Not far from where McAlpin spent those months drifting, a family had been building for decades. Randy Kuznik opened Mr. Cars in 1977. He established the dealership on East 185th Street in the Collinwood neighborhood. Over time, the dealership became a neighborhood fixture.

When Randy’s son, Michael, grew up, he took on a central role in the business. Michael Kuznik was 50 years old when April 2017 arrived. Trina Tomola, 46 years old, became an integral part of Mr. Cars through her relationship and eventual marriage to Michael. Together, Michael and Trina built a life directly connected to the dealership. They lived around the corner from Mr. Cars with their children, including Trina’s 19-year-old son, Colin Zatkowsky, a 13-year-old daughter, and a 6-year-old son. Axel, the family’s Doberman Pinscher, went to work with Michael and Trina every day.

April 14, 2017, began like any other workday. It was Good Friday. Michael and Trina had already prepared Easter baskets for their children and placed them in the back of their car. Two customers came in and purchased vehicles, paying in cash. Michael carried the money from those sales—at least $7,500—tucked into his back pocket.

At 5:21 p.m., Michael and Trina moved the two blocker vehicles into their positions in front of the gate, a routine end-of-day task they performed to deter theft overnight. Then they went back inside.

The Murders on East 185th Street

Several blocks away, Joseph McAlpin had spent the afternoon making plans of a different kind. Earlier that day, McAlpin met with his brother, Jerome Diggs, and a man named Andrew Keener. The plan was to hit a local car lot, steal vehicles and their titles, and sell them afterward.

McAlpin drove the three of them toward Collinwood. He had done his preparation. Nine days earlier, on April 5th, he had used his Google account to search for information about different firearms and calibers. He parked on Windward Road. Keener and Diggs stayed behind in the vehicle while McAlpin walked toward East 185th Street alone.

At 5:22 p.m., McAlpin called Keener. Two minutes later, surveillance footage from across the street captured a figure in a dark hoodie, red sweatpants, and a baseball cap pulled low, walking through the front entrance of Mr. Cars at 5:24 p.m.

No camera captured what happened inside those walls because the person who walked through that door disabled the security system and stole the digital video recorder.

Inside, Michael Kuznik was shot twice in the head. The first shot was from two and a half to three feet away. Michael ran from the front of the showroom to the back of the building, where the second bullet found him at point-blank range. He was found face down behind a desk. The $7,500 in cash and his wallet were gone from his back pocket.

Trina Tomola Kuznik was shot once in the back of the head as she moved toward an exit. Her body was found in a back office. Axel was shot once in the head; his body lay in the hallway between the showroom and the back office.

Keys to a 2008 BMW and a 2006 Mercedes were taken from the lot. At 6:31 p.m., surveillance recorded the figure exiting Mr. Cars, moving a blocker vehicle, and loading an object into the Mercedes. He got into the BMW. At 6:41 p.m., Andrew Keener walked onto the lot and got into the Mercedes. Both vehicles pulled away.

The Discovery and Investigation

An hour passed, then another. Michael and Trina did not come home. Colin Zatkowsky, Trina’s 19-year-old son, decided to go check on them. He drove to Mr. Cars and noticed the blocker vehicles were out of place and the showroom door was propped open.

Colin went inside and found a body in a pool of blood. He ran outside and called 911. Cleveland Police Detectives Alexander Gemuicio and Kevin Warnock responded to the scene, finding Michael, Trina, and Axel dead.

The investigation was handled by multiple agencies. Though the DVR was gone, investigators obtained surveillance footage from nearby businesses. Forensic technicians processed the scene, recovering DNA from the back office modem, Michael Kuznik’s clothing, and the interior of the stolen BMW (which was recovered on April 20th).

FBI special agent Brian Young reviewed cell phone records. Data showed multiple calls between McAlpin and Keener in the hours surrounding the murders, pinging towers near Mr. Cars. McAlpin’s Google location history tracked his phone moving toward the exact location where the stolen BMW was found. In the early morning hours of April 15th, McAlpin searched how to salvage a 2008 BMW and how to switch a vehicle title without the owner’s permission.

An anonymous tip named Jerome Diggs and Joseph McAlpin. On June 8th, 2017, the forensic lab confirmed that DNA matching McAlpin’s profile had been found at three separate locations: the modem, Michael Kuznik’s back pocket, and the interior of the stolen BMW.

On June 13th, 2017, Joseph McAlpin was arrested. He denied any involvement but offered no explanation for the DNA. In November 2017, Andrew Keener and Jerome Diggs were also arrested. Keener eventually took a plea deal, receiving six years in exchange for his cooperation and testimony against McAlpin.

An Unprecedented Trial

On June 28th, 2018, Joseph McAlpin told the court he wanted to represent himself. Judge Brian Corrigan held a formal hearing to assess the decision, warning McAlpin of the severe dangers of navigating a capital trial without an attorney. McAlpin insisted. Standby counsel was appointed to advise him, but they had no authority to act on his behalf. No defendant had ever represented himself in a capital murder trial in Cuyahoga County history.

The trial began on March 18th, 2019. The prosecution called 33 witnesses over 22 days. Their case was built on four pillars: surveillance footage, cell phone data, Google account evidence, and DNA.

McAlpin did not take the stand. Acting as his own lawyer, his central argument was that he was the target of a massive, multi-agency conspiracy. He argued that the DNA found at the scene could have been transferred there from a previous visit when he supposedly test-drove a car.

“I’m not no monster,” he told the jury. “I’ve got a family just like everybody else in here… But yet they want to take all the good unexplainable evidence, as they would say.”

He challenged Keener’s testimony, questioning why the jury would trust a man who made a deal to save his own life. The prosecution’s response was blunt. Assistant Prosecutor Brian Radigan told the jury, “He wants you to feel sorry for him, that this is a big, statewide, multi-agency conspiracy against Joseph McAlpin. It’s ridiculous. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

On April 16th, 2019, after roughly two full days of deliberation, the jury found Joseph McAlpin guilty on all counts, including four counts of aggravated murder.

Sentencing and Appeals

The penalty phase began on May 13th, 2019. McAlpin called family members to the stand, who described his childhood marked by instability, violence, loss, and abandonment. McAlpin addressed the jury in an unsworn statement, maintaining his innocence but stating, “I do feel sorry for what happened because I know what it feels like.”

The jury deliberated for just 30 minutes. Their recommendation was death.

On May 21st, 2019, Judge Corrigan formally sentenced McAlpin to death on both counts of aggravated murder, plus an additional 63 years in prison for the remaining offenses. McAlpin was scheduled to be put to death on May 19th, 2026.

Under Ohio law, a death sentence carries an automatic direct appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court. Now represented by an attorney, McAlpin raised 17 arguments, most notably that his right to self-representation should not have extended into the mitigation phase. Because McAlpin had represented himself during the trial, he had failed to object at critical moments, severely weakening his appeals. On May 12th, 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously affirmed his convictions and death sentence.

McAlpin continued to file motions for a new trial based on supposed newly discovered evidence regarding Google location data, which were repeatedly dismissed for procedural errors.

As of early 2026, Joseph McAlpin’s execution date remains set for May 19th, 2026. However, it will not be carried out on that day. A court order has stayed his execution pending the exhaustion of all state post-conviction proceedings.

Furthermore, Ohio has not executed anyone since July 2018. In December 2020, Governor Mike DeWine placed an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment because the state could not obtain the drugs required for lethal injection, and a federal judge ruled the existing protocol could subject inmates to severe pain. DeWine has issued dozens of reprieves, postponing executions through the end of his term in 2026.

What comes next is unknown. Lethal injection remains the only legally authorized execution method in Ohio. The moment the moratorium is lifted, executions will resume. When they do, Joseph McAlpin’s name will be on the list.