Aaron Blake Wright was bound over for trial on Tuesday on a charge of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Jina Anne Reyes-Woehler after his attorneys struggled to mount a defense implying Reyes-Woehler was a “fighter.”

Reyes-Woehler, 35, died from stab wounds the morning of Friday, Aug. 29 behind the former VFW building in the 1800 block of Massachusetts Street.

On Tuesday, the coroner who performed Reyes-Woehler’s autopsy testified that she had 12 stab wounds. A sexual assault kit that coroners used during Reyes-Woehler’s autopsy showed Wright’s DNA on her genitals, according to testimony.

Senior Judge Mike Ward, standing in for Douglas County District Judge Amy Hanley, ruled on Tuesday that prosecutors had established probable cause in the preliminary hearing, meaning there was sufficient evidence for Wright, 64, to face a jury trial. That is set for July 27. A preliminary hearing does not decide a defendant’s guilt in a case.

Once Ward closed the preliminary hearing, the defense waffled on when to set an arraignment, but decided to enter a plea of “not guilty” for Wright the same afternoon.

Family and friends described Reyes-Woehler, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, as a talented artist who could always lighten the mood and make people laugh. She was a mother of a daughter and a son, and she’s also survived by her parents, three sisters, a brother and numerous relatives and friends.

Tuesday’s witness testimony began to piece together the events on Thursday and Friday, Aug. 28 and 29, around the time Reyes-Woehler was killed. 

John Willits testified Tuesday that he had been with Wright behind the VFW that Thursday afternoon. He saw Reyes-Woehler arrive with her boyfriend, Richard Snell, and some more folks they knew to drink together. 

Willits said he left soon after that group arrived and stayed at the Lawrence Community Shelter overnight. He said he was headed to Jubilee Cafe for breakfast Friday morning when something told him he should get off the bus at the stop near the VFW.

“I’m not saying God told me to get off the bus or something like that, but for some reason …  I got off the bus,” Willits said.

He said he went to the back of the VFW building, where he had last seen Reyes-Woehler and Wright. He said Reyes-Woehler was lying on the ground, unclothed from the waist down. At the time, he didn’t realize she had died and didn’t want to look closer to give her privacy.

He woke up Wright, asleep in a nearby folding chair, who began repeating that he had done nothing to Reyes-Woehler. Once he realized that Reyes-Woehler was dead, Willits said he told Wright they needed to do the right thing and report it. He said he ultimately noticed abrasions on Reyes-Woehler and spotted an incision on her abdomen.

At that point, Willits said that he and Wright split off to get help. Testimony from other witnesses indicated that Wright waved down a city bus during this time. 

Liberty Hardt, a bus driver contracted by Lawrence Transit, testified that Wright told her “there was a dead body, a dead woman” across the street. Hardt said she asked Wright if he’d called the police, but he gave a noncommittal answer. She contacted her dispatcher, who then called the police.

Snell later took the stand to provide his account of Thursday, Aug. 28. He said he and his peers who were behind the VFW left to go drink at Watson Park. Snell said he tried to convince Reyes-Woehler to go with him, but she whispered to him that she wanted to stay to see if she could “hustle” money from Wright.

Snell testified that was the last time he saw Reyes-Woehler alive.

Wright was detained Friday, Aug. 29 by Austin Corbitt, a patrol officer with the Lawrence Police Department.

Corbitt said he responded to the call the police received about a possibly deceased person behind the VFW. Based on Hardt’s description of Wright, he located the defendant across the street outside of the Dillons.

Corbitt testified Tuesday that Wright’s actions were “not consistent with any witness behavior that I’ve experienced.” Corbitt said that Wright told him it was a white man who had approached the bus driver, while also refusing to provide his name or identification to the officer.

Corbitt also testified that Wright said that “we” and then “I” didn’t touch Reyes-Woehler, and Wright said there was no saliva on either of them.

Multiple witnesses, such as Willits and LPD officers and detectives, noted that all layers of Wright’s clothing appeared to have red-brown stains Friday, Aug. 29. Officers found these stains on his sweatshirt, tan undershirt, hat, pants, underwear and shoes, as well as on the blade of a knife that Corbitt said he retrieved from Wright’s pocket, and on the palm of his left hand.

LPD officers sent some of the items and swabs to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for testing.

LPD Detective Kelsey Kemppainen testified Tuesday that KBI results showed Reyes-Woehler’s blood on at least Wright’s shoes, jeans, the knife and his hand. Other items came back with blood but insufficient DNA to establish whose it was.

Kemppainen also said Snell’s hoodie tested positive for Reyes-Woehler’s blood.

Kemppainen additionally said results of the sexual assault test kit sent to KBI showed Wright’s DNA on Reyes-Woehler’s genitals. No witnesses spoke to whether any potential sexual contact between Wright and Reyes-Woehler was consensual or not.

Wright interviewed with Lawrence police officers twice: once on Friday, Aug. 28, and once the following day upon his own request.

LPD Detective Dean Brown, who co-conducted both interviews, testified that Wright was at times challenging to interview, and that he showed signs of confusion, although Brown didn’t suspect that Wright was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Brown said that Wright “adamantly denied through two interviews that he ever had vaginal sex with Ms. Woehler.” At one point, Brown said that Wright admitted it was possible he had blacked out and had a physical altercation with Reyes-Woehler, but still insisted that the two hadn’t had penetrative sex.

Altaf Hossain is the coroner and chief forensic pathologist at Frontier Forensic Midwest, the company that Douglas County contracts for autopsies.

Hossain and four technicians in his office performed Reyes-Woehler’s autopsy Sept. 2. He testified that they found 12 stab wounds of varying depths and severities on her body. 

One of the wounds starting on the left side of her chest was 8 inches deep, and one of her lungs had a laceration, Hossain said. He said that it is possible a knife between 3 and 5 inches long could cause a wound with 10 or 11 inches of depth, depending on force of the user and where the knife enters the body.

Hossain also said Reyes-Woehler’s wrists had contusions, and there was debris around a laceration on one of her knees which could indicate she had a physical struggle with someone on the ground.

Defense counsel asked Brown about Reyes-Woehler’s Facebook activity, and her interaction with a boxing-centric page. They also asked multiple witnesses who knew Reyes-Woehler if they would consider her a “fighter.”

Gary West, Wright’s defense attorney, called Seth Yancey as a witness. West has represented and is currently representing Yancey, but the latter said he was comfortable testifying in this case.

When West asked Yancey if Reyes-Woehler was a fighter, he said, “We all are. You have to be on the streets.” Yancey also said Reyes-Woehler would defend herself if she needed to.

West asked Snell, too, whether Reyes-Woehler was a fighter.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Eve Kemple followed up with questions posed to Snell, establishing that Reyes-Woehler was unhoused at the time she was killed.

Snell agreed with Kemple that Reyes-Woehler was in a vulnerable position and would have needed to protect herself in general.

Other questions defense counsel posed to the witnesses aimed to show that Wright recently worked as an HVAC technician, and possibly had money on him at the time.

West had intended to call Randy Burns, also known as J.R. Burns, as a witness on Tuesday. Burns was subpoenaed but did not appear for the preliminary hearing.

During his interviews with police, Brown said that Wright proposed two theories suggesting either Burns and Snell had committed the murder.

In his first interview, Brown said that Wright thought Snell might have returned to the VFW while he was blacked out, stabbed Reyes-Woehler and wiped the blood on Wright’s clothes. An LPD detective testified that the majority of the bloodstains on Wright’s clothes looked like they had saturated the clothing or fallen on as blood drops, as opposed to transfer stains, which could be caused by wiping an object in blood.

By the second interview, Brown said Wright no longer thought it was Snell, but thumbed Burns, saying that the man had previously had a “tumultuous” relationship with Reyes-Woehler.

Brown testified that Wright admitted he had no further reason to think that Snell or Burns were involved in Reyes-Woehler’s death. 

Many of Reyes-Woehler’s friends and family were in the courtroom for the preliminary hearing Tuesday. Some wore shirts and sweatshirts with Reyes-Woehler’s smiling face on the front. On the backs were red handprints representing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, a movement to bring attention to statistics that Native women face catastrophically higher rates of abduction and murder than the national average.

Brittany Hall, Shawnee, is a close family friend and provided a statement on behalf of the family.

“Today’s hearing was a painful reminder of the loss our family lives with every day,” the statement reads. “Our Jina was more than a victim. She was a daughter, a friend, and a light in our lives that can never be replaced.We continue to stand together, leaning on one another as we navigate this process. We are hopeful that justice will be served and that her voice will be heard through all of us.”

The statement also says the family appreciates the support they’ve received, and they ask for continued thoughts and prayers.

Wright’s jury trial is set to start at 8:30 a.m. Monday, July 27. It is scheduled to continue through Friday, July 31, if necessary.

Wright is facing two other felony charges in separate cases, which will be resolved alongside this trial. Those cases are back on the docket for 9 a.m Wednesday, April 29.

Read more about the case in the articles linked below.

Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.

Read their complete bio here. Read their work for the Times here.

Molly Adams (she/her), photo editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2022. She can be reached at molly@lawrencekstimes.com.

Check out more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.

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