YOUNGSTOWN Mich. man who confessed to killing gets out of jail

Prosecutors had agreed to take no position on a request for early release.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A Detroit man who confessed a 1992 slaying was released from prison this week after serving less than nine months.
Talawrence Wright, 29, was sentenced in January to serve two to 10 years in Marion Correctional Institution for the killing of 19-year-old Sanika Trevathan. He had pleaded guilty in August 2001 to a charge of involuntary manslaughter.
The charge was reduced from murder as part of a plea agreement with the county prosecutor's office.
Judge Jack Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court approved a request this week from Wright's attorney, Louis DeFabio, to release Wright on shock probation.
Lori Shells, an assistant prosecutor, said part of the plea deal was that the prosecutor's office would not oppose the request.
Authorities said Wright killed Trevathan in February 1992. Trevathan was shot 18 times at close range in the living room of an Oak Lane house on the city's East Side.
Altercation
Prosecutors said that there had been an altercation between the two men and that some witnesses had said Trevathan provoked Wright to shoot him.
Wright was not indicted until 2000 because he'd fled to Michigan immediately after the shooting and authorities couldn't find him.
Prosecutors said at the time that because the shooting had happened so long ago, many of the witnesses had left the area and authorities did not know their whereabouts.
bjackson@vindy.com