Jurors continue deliberations in Bennie Adams’ murder trial

YOUNGSTOWN — A jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court resumed their deliberations at 9 a.m. today in the murder trial of Bennie Adams, 51.

The jury was sequestered in a hotel after recessing its deliberations Tuesday evening.

Adams is 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 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.