TRUMBULL SLAYING Officials: Suspect stood by at scene
The victim was stabbed 44 times.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A man who admitted beating Denise Angelo on the night of her death stood by watching as police removed her body from a wooded area off North Road, officials say.
An affidavit describing the scene was filed by the Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office moments before Gentry William Freeman, 23, of Allenwood, Howland, appeared in common pleas court.
The Howland High School graduate who recently attended a local police academy pleaded innocent to charges of aggravated murder and kidnapping.
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for May 9. Freeman is being held in the county jail without bond.
Angelo's body was found near a creek Friday morning. Freeman watched as police placed her body on a stretcher, the affidavit states.
The 35-year-old Warren woman was stabbed 44 times in the face, neck, chest and abdomen, with some wounds inflicted after she was dead, the affidavit says.
Freeman told police he assaulted Angelo, but he denied stabbing her.
Describes encounter
According to the affidavit, Freeman told police he was driving on Atlantic Street around 3 a.m. Monday or Tuesday last week. He said a woman got in his car while he was stopped at a traffic light and asked for a ride to the Park Inn in Niles.
Freeman said that when the two got near North Road Elementary School on North Road, he told her to get out of his car.
"She got out and slammed the door real hard," the affidavit quotes Freeman. "When she was getting out she called me the 'N' word. I drove off and went to my house."
He said that a few minutes later he drove back to the area and saw Angelo walking on North Road. He said "she was still running at the mouth" so he started chasing her.
"I tried to tackle her but she fell," Freeman says in the affidavit. "She was running in circles. I caught up to her and punched her in the face. She fell down in the ditch. I jumped down on her and grabbed her arms 'cause she was fighting me.
"I started punching her in the face. I whacked her. I kept beating her and she stopped fighting because she was knocked out."
Freeman said he went home, the affidavit states.
Called 911
On Friday, Freeman said, he was driving past the area and saw a body. He said he went to a coin-operated telephone and called 911. He told the 911 operator he saw someone dumping something and gave a false name, the affidavit states.
Freeman waited a few minutes and went to another pay phone, called 911 again and said he saw a body in the ditch, according to the affidavit.
Someone who heard the tape and knows Freeman's voice called Vince Peterson, a county probation officer and friend of the Freeman family. Peterson called Freeman and asked him to go with him to the city police station, the affidavit states.
Police searched Freeman's home Monday.
sinkovich@vindy.com