Victim's kin oppose Girts' possible parole

The families will meet today with a hearing officer.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
POLAND -- Newspaper clippings, trial transcripts and letters from supporters fill an inch-thick binder that Bettianne Jones compiled to object to the parole of convicted murderer Robert Girts.
Girts, 52, a township native, was convicted in 1995 in Cuyahoga County of killing Diane Jones Girts, his third wife and Jones' sister-in-law, who died in 1992 of cyanide poisoning. She was 42.
Jones and Tom Morris, whose sister, Terrie, was Girts' first wife, are traveling to Cuyahoga County today to meet with a hearing officer to voice their opposition to Girts' parole.
Although he was never charged with Terrie's death, Morris' family suspects that Girts killed her, too. She was 25 when she died. The cause was initially listed as a swollen heart. When Terrie's body was exhumed after Diane's death several years later, pathologists told the Morris family that probably wasn't the cause, but they didn't detect poison.
Their visit today with the hearing officer precedes a June 16 institutional hearing regarding Girts' possible parole at the Oakwood Correctional Facility in Lima, where Girts is incarcerated. Afterward, a review board in Columbus will make a final decision.
Working on it together
"This is something our families are doing together," said Jones, of Columbiana. "It's vindication for Terrie, too."
Jones' husband, Barry, Diane's brother, died in 1997.
"They were close," Jones said of her husband and his sister. "I believe that's what killed him. He was never the same."
Morris, of Poland, said his mother, who died a few years ago, never recovered after Terrie's body was exhumed. "She aged 20 years overnight," he said of his mother.
Girts was sentenced in 1995 to 20 years to life for Diane's death. He's served two-thirds of his sentence, making him eligible for parole. Jones and Morris hope to make sure he doesn't get it.
"We want to show that this was a way of life with him," Jones said. "That's why Terrie is so important in this. He was a predator all his life and if he gets out, he's going to do it again."
A second wife remains in the area. She has written a letter opposing Girts' parole, as has a woman with whom Girts was romantically linked before Diane's death.
Similarities
Both Diane and Terrie were tall and thin, kind of quiet and close to their families, their families said. After both marriages, the couples moved away. Jones and Morris think that was Girts' way of distancing the women from their loved ones. With Terrie, the couple moved to Hawaii. With Diane, they lived near Parma.
In both cases, the families got bad vibes from Girts even before the marriages, they said. "My mom begged my sister not to marry him," Morris said.
Jones said she always had a bad feeling about Girts, but the family accepted him for Diane's sake.
Morris' mother bought Girts and her daughter a house when they moved back to Poland. Shortly thereafter, Terrie grew ill.
Her feet swelled and she became lethargic. She was admitted to the hospital after a blood clot, slipped into a coma and died. Her mother wanted an autopsy, but Girts wouldn't allow it.
Morris and Jones both think money, although it wasn't much, was the motive in the deaths of both women.
Jones and other relatives suspected Girts in Diane's death from the beginning. He was out of town and a neighbor found her body in the bathtub of the couple's home when she didn't show up for work.
Noted by police
Some of Girts' actions tipped police off from the beginning. He wanted her body taken to a hospital that didn't conduct autopsies, for example. Girts was an embalmer and a former owner of a Vienna funeral home.
Jones' husband didn't want to consider that Girts killed his sister. He had to be persuaded by Jones, friends and other relatives.
Jones has been conscious of the date of Girts' parole eligibility for years. About six months ago, she started to gear up for it, preparing the binder, re-reading news articles and court testimony.
She attributes her passion for the cause to her husband and believes he'd be proud of all of the time and effort she's devoted to it.
Morris points out that with Diane's parents and brother both deceased, Jones is the only one left to look out for Diane's memory. "If Bettianne didn't do it, it wouldn't get done," he said.
After the deaths of both women, it was their families, not Girts, who paid for their funerals. Jones and her husband bought the two plots in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Boardman, that Girts had reserved but not paid for.
Jones ensured, however, that Girts won't be buried next to the woman he's convicted of killing. "Barry is buried next to Diane," she said.