WARREN Jury mulls decision in slayings of mom, daughter

The jury deliberated about five hours before asking to go to a hotel for the evening.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Jurors today are expected to continue deliberating a verdict in the capital murder trial of a Champion man.
The jurors spent about five hours deliberating Stanley Adams' fate Tuesday evening before asking to go to a hotel for the evening.
Adams is accused of murdering Esther Cook, 43, and her 12-year-old daughter, Ashley. Their bodies were found Oct. 11, 1999, in their Dickey Avenue home. If convicted, Adams could face the death penalty.
Adams has maintained his innocence but did not testify during the trial.
Final points: During closing arguments Tuesday, Atty. Ted Macejko Jr., who represents Adams, urged jurors to examine the evidence and consider the credibility of the witnesses. Macejko noted that several of the witnesses admitted to being drug addicts and prostitutes.
"Would you let these people watch your money, baby-sit your children or watch your house?" Macejko asked the jurors. "I wouldn't let them watch my dog."
Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, however, told jurors that if they use "common sense" they will be able to convict Adams of all of the charges.
"Stanley says he is at a party where there is beer and cocaine and he runs out of money," Watkins said. "He says he is going by Esther's house and decides to check on her because there is a light on. He says he trips over her body, gets blood on him, calls for Ashley and then goes upstairs and finds that Ashley is dead. He says he trips over Esther's body. He finds two dead people, but he doesn't bother to call police. Come on."
Watkins also noted that city police stopped the car Adams was driving during a routine traffic stop shortly after midnight Oct. 12 and noticed that Adams wasn't wearing a shirt and had blood on his pants. Adams told officers he had blood on his pants because he cut his hand.
Search: "There was a lot of blood at the scene but yet the officers did not say Stanley had blood on his face or in his hair but on his pants," Macejko said. "The officers search his car and they don't find anything. They find some tools but they don't find any weapons and they let Stanley go."
Esther and Ashley Cook's bodies were found the next day.
Watkins also told jurors to remember that Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, the county's forensic pathologist, testified that on Esther Cook's face there was a mark that looked as she had been hit with "some type of tool."
During the trial, scientists with the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation testified that sperm found on Ashley and on a bed sheet next to her matched Adams' DNA.