Son: Canton man's 22 stab wounds 'felt across the entire fabric of my family's being.'

CANTON ‒ Given the chance to speak to his father's killer, Keith D. Greggs II talked about how the 22 stab wounds inflicted by Willis R. Kennedy changed the lives of his family members.

"Those cuts and slashes were felt across the entire fabric of my family's being and existence," he said Monday in Stark County Common Pleas Court. "Not only did you take away my dad's many opportunities from him forever, but you have taken many opportunities from me and my family.

“He has taken away from me the ability to have a dad, the ability to ask for fatherly advice while raising my two boys," he told Judge Natalie R. Haupt. "He has taken away my brother’s chance at growing up with his dad around to show him how be a man and help him stay out of trouble. He has taken my sons’ ability to know their grandfather. He has taken away my grandmother's protection and financial stability."

Greggs said that when Kennedy killed his father Keith D. Greggs, he took away the prospect of his grandmother moving from a public housing apartment into a house bought with his father's veterans' benefits.

After hearing from the defendant and the victim's son and cousin, Haupt sentenced Kennedy to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 15 years, as mandated by state law.

“Mr. Kennedy, last June you took the life of Keith Greggs, a total stranger to you, in a brutal and violent fashion. He was not just ‘some dude,’ as you called him," she said. "He was a person, and as you can see here today, he was a father. He was a son. He was a grandfather, a veteran, a cousin."

What happened between Keith Greggs and Willis Kennedy?

A jury convicted Kennedy of murder and felonious assault on Wednesday. The trial began Jan. 29.

Kennedy, 39, stabbed Greggs, 54, on June 28 at a Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority apartment complex, Girard Gardens, at 2215 Tuscarawas St. E

In his opening statement at trial, defense attorney Anthony Wise said Greggs threatened to kill Kennedy, showed him a gun that was tucked into his waistband, and fired one or two shots. But prosecutors said Greggs had turned and was walking away when Kennedy attacked him from behind.

Offered an opportunity to comment, Kennedy stood, turned to the victim's family members seated in back of the courtroom, said, "Sorry for your loss," and sat down.

Before the judge pronounced the sentence, Greggs referred to a comment Kennedy made in a police interrogation about Black lives mattering to him.

"Do you see how many Black lives you have disrupted and ruined with your cowardly actions? My entire dad's side of the family, your entire family and the entirety of the Black community of Girard Gardens," he said to Kennedy.

Nicole Evans, a cousin to Keith Greggs, noted that she is Black.

“What the community is doing to itself is so crippling, " she said. She told Kennedy to "stand on business."

"Just like you sat there and you killed my cousin, I want you to stand on that for the rest of your life," Evans said.

She said she and other families would stand to object to Kennedy ever being paroled.

Family members continue to struggle after Keith Griggs' death

Greggs said the family struggled for eight months to find any insight into exactly what happened on the day Kennedy killed his father. He said the experience left them "partially blinded for the rest of our lives."

"He has made me unable to feel safe in any public setting at any time for I’m now strongly worried that someone could assume I've been sent to kill them and they may assault me,” Greggs said.

He said he is in weekly counseling to cope with the loss caused by Kennedy, whom he called a "domestic terrorist."

“You do not deserve my forgiveness," Greggs told Kennedy. "Not now, not ever. May my father's yells and blood-filled gurgles haunt you for the rest of your life. I hope you feel the pain, paranoia, suffering and anguish you have caused on all of us tenfold. I am on the long path of rehabilitation. I will not allow myself to be poisoned with anger and aggression the way that you have.

“He has robbed me of my mental well-being. He just robbed my fiancée of the chance to know what was soon to be her father-in-law. The rest of my life, every milestone, every joy, every shred of happiness will be shrouded in the fact that I will never share it with my dad again because of you."

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Reach Nancy at 330-580-8382 or nancy.molnar@cantonrep.com. On X, formerly known as Twitter: @nmolnarTR.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Willis R. Kennedy gets life sentence for killing Keith D. Greggs