TRUMBULL COUNTY Howland woman awaits verdict in murder trial
The defense declined to call witnesses and did not give a closing statement.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Deliberations resumed midmorning today for Donna Roberts, the Howland woman who told jurors near the start of her two-week capital murder trial that she was innocent.
After an unusual opening statement by the defendant, in which she advised jurors to listen to her attorneys, the trial wound down Tuesday with her and the defense team remaining quiet.
Almost as surprising as allowing Roberts, 57, to give her own opening statement, defense attorneys declined to provide any witnesses and did not give a closing statement.
Moments after Ken Bailey, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, finished his summation, defense lawyers J. Gerald Ingram and John B. Juhasz told Judge John Stuard they would not be giving a statement and asked that the instructions be read to the jury.
"It was a strategic decision," Ingram said, declining to give any further explanation for the unusual move.
Jurors began deliberating Roberts' fate early Tuesday afternoon, and when they had not reached a verdict by 10 p.m., they were kept in a downtown hotel overnight.
Charges
Roberts is charged with of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary.
Prosecutors said Roberts and her lover, Nathaniel Jackson, conspired to kill Robert Fingerhut, her former husband.
Prosecutors said Roberts wanted to cash in on two life insurance policies totaling $550,000.
"The motive was greed, pure and simple," Bailey said. "She wanted the victim dead because she wanted the money."
While Bailey made his closing statement, Roberts appeared agitated and at one point slammed her fist on the table.
Bailey reminded jurors that Roberts corresponded often with Jackson, who was in prison.
Roberts and Jackson, 29, wrote hundreds of letters to each other, some discussing their plans to kill Fingerhut when Jackson was released from prison, Bailey said.
"It's a rare case when you can go inside someone's mind, and you can in this case because you have her letters," Bailey said.
He suggested to jurors they wear latex gloves if they wanted to handle the correspondence placed in evidence because some of letters contained bodily fluids from Roberts and Jackson.
Killed in December
Roberts and Jackson were accused of killing Fingerhut on Dec. 11, 2001, in the Howland home Roberts and Fingerhut shared, just two days after Jackson was released from prison after serving one year on a Mahoning County conviction for receiving stolen property.
On much of the same evidence pending in this trial, Jackson was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary in the Fingerhut case and has been sentenced to death. He is appealing his conviction.
sinkovich@vindy.com