Thursday, October 23, 2008
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FRIEND’S COMFORT: Penny Sergeff of Ashtabula, a friend of Gina Tenney’s, breaks into tears after the guilty verdict was read in the aggravated- murder trial of Bennie Adams. She is hugged by Gina’s sister, Rhonda Tenney Gliva.
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GUILTY MAN: A jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court found Bennie Adams, center, guilty of the aggravated murder of Gina Tenney almost 23 years ago. He’s handcuffed by deputy sheriffs as his defense team, Lou DeFabio, left, and Tony Meranto, watch.
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Bennie Adams
Jurors will return for the penalty phase Tuesday.
YOUNGSTOWN — The sister of a Youngstown State University student killed almost 23 years ago said families of homicide victims should “never give up hope” that cold cases can be solved.
“God bless the prosecutors. God bless the detectives,” said Rhonda Tenney Gliva, who resides in the Cleveland area.
“We are so very grateful to the detectives who worked on the case, the prosecutors. We thank them with our whole hearts for preserving this evidence that we could present to a jury. We will be forever grateful.”
Gliva, who was 11 years older than Gina Tenney and Gina’s only sibling, was referring to the tenacity of city police detectives who preserved evidence so DNA analysis, which was not available in 1985, could solve the case and produce an indictment late last year.
“I always wanted a brother or sister, so when Gina was born, I was thrilled. I will always miss her. There’s not a day that goes by I don’t think of her. And I want everyone to know what a wonderful, wonderful person Gina was. She was vivacious, bubbly, the most loving, gracious, giving, caring person, and I will miss her until the day I die,” Gliva said.
Gliva made her remarks just after a jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court found Bennie Adams guilty of the aggravated murder of Gina Tenney almost 23 years ago.
The jurors also found Adams guilty of the death-penalty specification attached to the aggravated-murder charge.
“We’re very grateful to the jury and very grateful to God that we finally have justice for Gina. We have waited 23 years for this, and we miss her just as much today as we did when it happened,” Gliva said.
“I thought that maybe this would never come to trial,” she said. “When we received the call about a year ago, I know we were all so thrilled and excited that finally we would be getting some justice.”
She called the trial “grueling,” however.
She added: “It all washed over us again, and it was like it happened last week. It was very painful to relive it.”
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 Tuesday evening. Deliberations resumed at 9 a.m. Wednesday, with the jurors notifying the court of their decision just before 10 a.m.
“I’m very, very gratified that we were finally able to prosecute this case after all these years,” said city police Detective William Blanchard, who initially investigated the case in 1985.
“The detectives that worked on this case always felt that it was a strong case, and I think this proves it, and I’m just very happy that we were finally able to get justice,” he added.
“It’s a day that we’ve thought about for many years. We’ve never lost sight of who Gina Tenney is and who Gina Tenney could have been. We reflect today that she would have been 42 years old today,” said Capt. Kenneth Centorame, chief of detectives.
“As we remember Gina, this will be something that we can fall back on,” Tenney’s father, Lucian Tenney of Ashtabula, said of the verdict. “We visit her grave just about every day. And a lot of people say that’s odd. But it’s a place to go and reflect on our life and on Gina’s life, and we loved her very much,” he said, adding that she worked and studied hard.
“We know she’s at home now. ... She was — and deserved to be — happy today,” he added.
The 12 jurors and four alternates will return to the courthouse at 9 a.m. Tuesday for the trial’s penalty phase. Judge Timothy E. Franken said the jurors will likely begin deliberating Adams’ fate that day.
Jurors can recommend 25 years to life in prison; 30 to life, life without parole or death.
Adams, 51, was charged with the Dec. 29, 1985, strangulation of Tenney, 19, 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 the following day.
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.
Prosecuting and defense lawyers declined to comment after the verdict was read.
milliken@vindy.com