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Canton man pleads guilty to charge of drug possession
By John W. GOODWIN JR.
YOUNGSTOWN
A Canton man pleaded guilty to charges of felony possession of drugs in a February homicide in the city.
Emmanuel Underwood, 26, entered the plea Tuesday before Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court before the start of his trial. He originally had been charged with felony trafficking in drugs.
Rob Andrews, an assistant county prosecutor, under the plea agreement, will recommend Underwood be sentenced to probation should he continue to assist the state in the prosecution of several co-defendants in his case. He will be sentenced March 16, two weeks after co-defendants in the case go to trial.
Underwood was indicted in April after Mark A. Trulson, 32, of Hartstown, Pa., was shot Feb. 12.
Trulson was killed in a triple shooting on the city’s South Side. He later died in St. Elizabeth Health Center of a gunshot wound to the head, according to a report from the county coroner’s office.
Trulson, Michelle Difrischia and Charles Gehr were shot around 9:40 p.m. while in a pickup truck outside a South Avenue gas station/convenience store.
Underwood had been charged only with the drug offense, not the shooting and homicide.
According to the coroner’s report, Trulson had been involved in an altercation on South at Williamson Avenue, which ended with the shooting.
St. Elizabeth officials did not release the conditions of Difrischia and Gehr to the public, but city police at the time said one was shot in the arm and the other in the back.
Mark Colpetro, 29, of Willis Avenue, and Robert Clark, 37, of Canfield Road, are both charged with murder. Clark is in the county jail with bond set at $100,000. Colpetro is free after posting a $100,000 bond.
Both men are scheduled to appear March 7 before Judge Sweeney for trial.
Randy Bell, 24, of Philadelphia Avenue, is free on a $250,000 bond on a murder charge in the same case. He is to appear before Judge Sweeney for trial Dec. 13.