Lower bond sought in drowning

A suspect in the 2001 drowning murder pleads innocent.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The lawyer for David Sharpe, the suspect in the 2001 bathtub drowning and dismemberment of 15-year-old James P. Higham, said he will move to reduce his client’s bond from the present $500,000 to somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.

After Sharpe’s Wednesday arraignment, Atty. Lou DeFabio said he’ll make the request at a pre-trial hearing for Sharpe before the judge who will actually try his case. The high bond was set by Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, DeFabio said.

“This case is 6 years old,” DeFabio said. “The authorities have always known where he is ... David has never gone anywhere. He remained here. He would have turned himself in, as the state fully knew,” he said.

“If they had told me he had been indicted, I would have walked him down and turned him in. ... He’s not a flight risk. He’s not a threat to society, so I think $500,000 bond is excessive,” DeFabio said.

“We’ll react in the courtroom. I don’t try my cases in the press,” said county Prosecutor Paul Gains in reference to Sharpe’s bond.

The case is set for trial at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 23 before Judge James C. Evans, but DeFabio said it would likely be assigned to Judge Maureen A. Sweeney, who is handling the case of Sharpe’s live-in girlfriend and co-defendant, Jennifer Lynn Snyder.

A pretrial hearing for Sharpe will be at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

In August, Snyder, 34, was indicted on charges of tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse, child endangering and permitting child abuse after she gave statements to police.

Sharpe, 44, of Pyatt Street, pleaded innocent Wednesday to all charges when he was arraigned before Magistrate Wade Smith of Common Pleas Court on charges of murder, tampering with evidence, child endangering, permitting child abuse and gross abuse of a corpse.

Sharpe was indicted by the Mahoning County grand jury and arrested last Thursday. Magistrate Smith continued the bond set by Judge Durkin under which Sharpe remains jailed.

DeFabio, who did not address Sharpe’s bond at the video arraignment from Mahoning County jail, entered the plea on Sharpe’s behalf, with Meghan Brundage, assistant county prosecutor, appearing for the prosecution.

Police believe Sharpe drowned the boy in a bathtub on or about June 15, 2001, after a confrontation at a Manchester Avenue residence where Snyder was then living.

The body was dismembered and disposed of in a trash bin and several other places on the South Side. Snyder didn’t report Higham missing until Jan. 3, 2002.

Higham’s parents divorced about 15 years ago, and his mother, with whom he had resided in Japan after the divorce, retained custody of him. Higham came to the United States in 2000 for an extended visit and stayed in Youngstown with a friend of his mother and then with Sharpe and Snyder until his disappearance.

Snyder, who is to be the prosecution’s star witness against Sharpe, is a sister of the second wife of the boy’s father, said Sally Higham of Austintown, the boy’s grandmother. The boy’s father lives in Missouri. The boy’s mother continues to reside in Japan.