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Jury wants death penalty for Adams in Tenney murder
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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.
YOUNGSTOWN — An eight-woman, four-man jury has recommended that Bennie Adams receive the death penalty for the 1985 murder of Gina Tenney.
The jury rendered its penalty verdict at 1:45 p.m. today after more than 10 hours of deliberations on the penalty.
Judge Timothy E. Franken of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court will sentence Adams at 9 a.m. Thursday.
The same jury that recommended the penalty had convicted Adams last Wednesday of aggravated murder with a death penalty specification.
Tenney, a 19-year-old Youngstown State University student, who was Adams’ upstairs neighbor in an Ohio Avenue duplex, died by strangulation on Dec. 29, 1985. Her frozen body was found floating in the Mahoning River near West Avenue the following day.
Adams, 51, was indicted in the case last year after a DNA match was found in evidence police had preserved for 22 years.