Testimony begins in ’79 slaying

By Ed Runyan

The other man involved in the fight is expected to testify.

WARREN — On April 29, 1979, Ronald Stahlman was a passenger in a pickup truck driven by his friend Roger Collins when Collins rear-ended a car driven by 18-year-old Bernard Williamson.

When Collins failed to stop, Williamson drove his Buick up behind the pickup truck, got out and confronted Collins, which led to a fight between the two men on Main Avenue near Fulton Street Southeast.

Williamson, of Karl Avenue in Warren Township, died of nine knife wounds to the chest and stomach.

The question that jurors will have to answer, Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor said, is what happened next.

Did Stahlman stab Williamson or did Collins?

And that won’t be easy, he admitted, as testimony in Stahlman’s trial in common pleas court began Monday.

“There is no physical evidence,” he said. Plus, after 30 years, many of the witnesses and police officers involved in the case are dead or not available for the trial, he added.

Even some of the photographs connected with the crime are gone, Becker said.

Becker said Stahlman and Collins fled the scene after the fight, drove to Collins’ house in Lordstown and hid out near Franklin Pa., for about a week before Stahlman left the area for good.

Collins soon told police his version of what happened and received a six-month jail term for assault and obstruction of justice.

For nearly 30 years, however, Stahlman lived in California, Colorado and Arizona, taking on the identity of Jim O’Neil. He even changed the last names of his two daughters on their birth certificates to O’Neil, Becker said.

Police arrested Stahlman on Dec. 9 in Payson, Ariz., after receiving a tip from an informant on where to find him. Payson is in a remote area 80 miles north of Phoenix.

Among the witnesses to testify Monday was Glen Ellison, who was driving north on Main Avenue with his girlfriend, Patricia Minor, and who saw the fight involving the three men.

Ellison, 58, said he saw one man with a beard and long hair and another man who didn’t have so much hair. Stahlman has been described as having long hair and a beard during those days.

When Ellison pulled up to the scene, Williamson was beating up the man with the shorter hair, Ellison said.

Then the other man got involved, and the fight started to turn against Williamson, Ellison said. Now, both men were hitting Williamson, though Ellison couldn’t see a weapon, he said.

Minor, who now is Patricia Strickland, also described one of the men as having long hair and a beard but said the thing she remembers best are the white pants Williamson was wearing.

“I’ll never forget he was wearing white pants, and they were covered in blood,” she said.

Debbie Bush, now 53, was in the car with Williamson.

She testified that Williamson, who was several years younger than her, picked her up that night in the Highland Homes apartments, and they went riding around.

After the accident, Williamson confronted Collins because of the damage to his car, and Collins, a tall man, “went off,” she said.

Bush said she ran to a nearby phone booth after the fight started and didn’t see what led to the fatal injuries.

Collins is expected to testify later in the trial, which resumes today. If convicted of murder, Stahlman, 56, could get a life prison sentence with parole eligibility after 15 years.

runyan@vindy.com