’94 North Side killer awaits same fate as Biros’

By Ed Runyan

Mahoning and Trumbull counties each have eight inmates on Death Row.

It took 14 years from the time of the crime until Jason Getsy, 33, was executed in August for the 1995 murder of Ann Serafino of Hubbard.

It took 18 years for the state to execute Kenneth Biros, 51, Tuesday for killing Tami Engstrom of Hubbard in 1991.

The next man from the Mahoning Valley likely to face the executioner is Mark Aaron Brown, 37, who killed Isam Salman and Hayder Al-Turk at the Midway Market in Youngstown in 1994.

Brown has an execution date of Feb. 4, 2010, and a clemency hearing Jan. 5, 2010, said Ralph Rivera, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor.

Paul Gains, Mahoning County prosecutor, said he’ll “have no problem” going to Columbus to argue against clemency for Brown or any of the seven other Mahoning County Death Row inmates, even though he was a defense attorney for hundreds of defendants, including murderers, for 15 years.

“Ohio has a lot of safeguards in place that some states do not have, and as long as it’s the law, I will enforce it,” Gains said of the death penalty.

The only reason he likely would change his mind about seeking the death penalty would be if new evidence comes to light, Gains said.

On Jan. 28, 1994, Brown was 22, drinking, smoking marijuana and playing cards with friends, many of them juvenile males, while playing with a handgun and talking about the movie “Menace II Society,” an Ohio Supreme Court document says.

Brown said he “wanted to copy the scene in the movie where assailants robbed and killed two Oriental store clerks,” the summary says. Brown and a friend drank wine mixed with a number of Valiums.

Later that night, one of the friends drove Brown to the Midway Market on Elm Street on the North Side, where Brown and another man entered the store, then returned to the car with a cigar purchase.

Witnesses then saw Brown “re-enter the store alone, wearing a mask or bandanna around his neck” and then heard gunshots.

One of the men in the car said Brown told him before re-entering the store: “I forgot to do something.” When he returned to the car, he said the gunshots were just “firecrackers,” but he had blood on his hand and clothes.

Police found the store owner, Salman, and an employee, Al-Turk, both Arabs, dead of gunshot wounds to the head. Both men were on the floor, but Salmon was kneeling under the counter. Brown later admitted killing Al-Turk but said he didn’t recall killing Salman.

Brown was sentenced to death for killing Salman and life in prison with parole eligibility after 30 years for killing Al-Turk.

The seven other Mahoning County inmates on Death Row are Bennie Adams, 52; Sidney Cornwell, 32; John Drummond, 32; John Eley, 60; Scott Group, 45; Willie Herring, 32; and Warren Spivey, 40.

Other than Brown, there are no scheduled execution dates for any of the 16 Mahoning and Trumbull County murderers on Death Row, though Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins asked the Ohio Supreme Court last month for an execution date for Roderick Davie, 38.

Davie is likely to be the next Trumbull County killer to face the death penalty, said LuWayne Annos, an assistant county prosecutor.

Davie killed John Coleman and Tracey Jeffries and nearly killed John Everett at the Veterinary Companies of America in Warren in 1991 — 18 years ago at age 19.

Davie had been fired from his job at the VCA on Main Avenue Southwest about three months before walking into the warehouse at 7:30 a.m. and ordering employees Coleman, Jeffries and Everett to lie face down on the floor.

Everett said Davie told them, “So you all work for VCA, huh?” Everett then heard gunshots and felt shots in the back of his head, shoulder and left arm. He remained conscious but acted like he was dead.

Jeffries attempted to escape, but Davie brought her back at gunpoint. After firing his last bullet into Coleman, Davie beat Jeffries to death with several instruments, including a metal chair on which police later found Davie’s fingerprints in Jeffries’ blood. The beating caused 36 lacerations on Jeffries.

Meanwhile, Danny Lee Hill, 42, who mutilated and killed 12-year-old Boy Scout Raymond Fife more than 24 years ago in Warren, has appeal hearings scheduled out as far as September 2010 in the federal court system. No execution date can be set until after that, said Miriam Fife, Raymond Fife’s mother and Trumbull County’s victim-witness advocate.

People routinely tell her that they hope Danny Lee Hill will be executed next — and right away. Then she tries to explain that his appeals probably will last a year or two more.

“I don’t like it, but what else can you do?” she said.

The reason it takes so long for executions to take place is because defense attorneys view it as their obligation to keep their client alive as long as possible, and judges believe they “would be in trouble, on a constitutional basis” if they didn’t grant killers all possible consideration, she said.

With Biros dead, Trumbull County has eight inmates on Death Row, including the only female out of 166 people — Donna Roberts, 65, of Howland.

The six others from Trumbull County on Death Row are Stanley Adams, 42; Sean Carter, 30; Nathaniel Jackson, 37; Charles Lorraine, 43; and Andre Williams, 42.

runyan@vindy.com