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Jury to resume deliberations today
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The Ohio Avenue duplex where Gina Tenney lived above Bennie Adams
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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.
Adams Verdict: Guilty
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YOUNGSTOWN — An eight-woman, four-man jury suspended its work for the night and was sequestered in a hotel after six hours of deliberations in the penalty phase of the Bennie Adams murder trial failed to produce a verdict Tuesday night.
Deliberations will resume at 9 a.m. today. The jury’s penalty options are 25 years to life in prison, 30 years to life, life without parole or death.
The jury convicted Adams last Wednesday of the 1985 aggravated murder of Gina Tenney with a death penalty specification.
The case is before Judge Timothy E. Franken of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Arguing for a life sentence, defense lawyers said Adams is a changed man who was college-educated and rehabilitated while he served 18 years in prison on a prior conviction, that he was supportive of his family, and found gainful employment shortly after he was paroled in 2004.
“Bennie Adams that sits before you today is not the guy from 1985,” said defense lawyer Tony Meranto. “This Bennie Adams deserves to live.’’ However, the prosecution, which called for a death sentence, said Adams must still be held accountable for his 1985 actions, in which prosecutors said he robbed, raped and kidnapped Tenney and burglarized her home in conjunction with committing the murder.
“It’s the defendant’s duty to finally accept some responsibility for that night 23 years ago,” said Dawn Cantalamessa, assistant county prosecutor.
“When he was paroled in 2004, he wasn’t a changed man. He had to get a job because, if he didn’t get a job, he’d be sent back to prison,” she added.
Adams, 51, was imprisoned in 1986 for the rape, robbery and kidnapping of a Boardman woman.
Tenney, a 19-year-old Youngstown State University student, who was Adams’ upstairs neighbor in an Ohio Avenue duplex, died by strangulation Dec. 29, 1985. Her frozen body was found floating in the Mahoning River near West Avenue the following day.
Adams was indicted in the case last year after a DNA match was found in evidence police had preserved for 22 years.
During testimony at Tuesday’s penalty phase hearing, Jack Mumma, a retired college course instructor and academic program administrator at the Marion Correctional Institution, where Adams was a prisoner, said Adams was always on the dean’s list.
A high school diploma or GED was required to enter that program, Mumma said.
After Adams graduated as class valedictorian, Mumma hired Adams as one of his four assistants, and Adams served as a tutor and mentor to other prisoners, Mumma testified.
Adams’ daughter, Trush Charleton, said her father encouraged her to finish high school while he was in prison, and that, after his release, he helped her buy a house, pay her bills and care for her children.
Adams’ parole officer, Robert O’Malley, said obtaining employment was a condition of Adams’ parole and that Adams never violated terms of his parole.
Adams’ mother, Lula, said her son had a troubled childhood. His father left their household while he was a young boy and never returned; Adams spent much of his childhood living with his grandparents in Alabama, while she worked as a live-in domestic worker in New York; and Adams did not graduate from high school with his classmates, she testified.