ADAMS VERDICT | Guilty

Adams Verdict: Guilty

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YOUNGSTOWN — A jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court today found Bennie Adams guilty of the aggravated murder of Gina Tenney almost 23 years ago.

The jurors also found him guilty of the death-penalty specification attached to the aggravated murder charge.

The eight-woman, four-man jury reached its verdict after 7 1‚Ñ2 hours of deliberations over two days. The jury was sequestered in a hotel after recessing its deliberations Tuesday evening. Deliberations resumed at 9 a.m. today, with the jurors notifying the court of their decision at 10 a.m.

Adams was charged with 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.

The case, in which opening statements were last Wednesday, is before Judge Timothy E. Franken.

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 remained as elements in support of the death-penalty specification.

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

The 12 jurors and four alternates will return to the courthouse at 9 a.m. Tuesday for the trial’s death-penalty phase. Judge Franken said the jurors will likely begin deliberating Adams' fate that day.

For the complete story, see Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com.