ADAMS TRIAL | Jurors sent to hotel for the night

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Bennie Adams

YOUNGSTOWN — Twelve jurors and four alternates have been bused to a local hotel to be sequestered for an overnight break in their deliberations in the capital murder trial of Bennie Adams.

Jurors, who wheeled their suitcases into the jury room this morning, heard closing arguments from prosecuting and defense lawyers before receiving instructions from Judge Timothy E. Franken of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

They began their deliberations at 1:15 p.m. today and recessed for the night at 7:45 p.m. Deliberations will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The jurors heard opening statements last Wednesday.

While in the hotel, the jurors will be in a separate wing of the building guarded by county sheriff’s deputies. Their rooms will have no TV, radio or Internet access.

Adams is charged with the aggravated murder of Gina Tenney almost 23 years ago. A death penalty specification is attached to the aggravated murder charge.

Adams was accused of the Dec. 29, 1985, strangulation of Tenney, a 19-year-old Youngstown State University student, who was his upstairs neighbor in an Ohio Avenue duplex.

Tenney’s frozen body was found floating in the Mahoning River near West Avenue on Dec. 30, 1985.

Adams, 51, was indicted in the cold case last fall after a DNA match was found in evidence police had preserved for 22 years.

While the 12 jurors deliberated, the four alternates remained in a separate room, where they could read materials unrelated to the Adams case, but they were instructed not to discuss the case among themselves.

In non-death penalty cases, alternates are dismissed at the start of deliberations.

Judge Franken had dismissed felony charges of aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, kidnapping and rape due to expiration of the six-year statute of limitations for those charges, but those allegations remain as elements in support of the death penalty specification.

There is no statute of limitations for murder charges under Ohio law.

If the jurors find Adams guilty of the death penalty specification, the jurors and alternates must return for a separate penalty determination phase of the trial.