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Robbery, kidnapping trial gets under way
Photo
O'Mearo Beaver, right, sits in the courtroom of Judge Peter Kontos of .Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Tuesday Jan. 11 during his trial .on charges of kidnapping and burglary. The trial started Monday with .opening arguments and testimony starting Tuesday.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The attorney for O’Mearo L. Beaver of Warren said police found his client in the Hampshire House Apartments last Jan. 27 in possession of items that had been stolen from a house on Westwood Street Northwest a short time earlier.
“He may have had some things in his pocket that maybe he shouldn’t have,” Atty. Michael Partlow said, but that doesn’t mean Beaver was one of three men who committed a kidnapping and robbery of a 12-year-old boy.
“The big controversy — your job — is to determine identity,” Partlow told the jury Tuesday during opening statements in Beaver’s trial in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
The boy, who was home alone, opened the door and allowed one of the three men into the house after the man asked to use the phone. After the man was in the house a short time, two others entered, ordered the boy to the floor and robbed the home.
After the three left, the boy called 911, and Warren Police Detective Jeff Cole used the information the boy gave to find two men in a car like the one used in the robbery.
Acting on a hunch, Cole drove to the Hampshire House Apartments on Fifth Street Southwest in his unmarked police car and spotted an older-model red car.
Cole, who is also a police spokesman and internal affairs officer, said he left the police station to look for the red car because the 3 p.m. robbery took place around shift change at the police department, and he wasn’t sure how many patrol officers would be on the street.
Cole took the two men in the car into custody and discovered items stolen from the Westwood Street home in their pockets and the trunk of their car.
Police then brought Beaver, of Commerce Street Northwest, and Shon L. Thompson, 21, of Fifth Street Southwest, to the Westwood Street home and asked the boy if they were among the robbers, and the boy said yes.
The third man and some of the stolen items have not been found.
“The young victim in this case was influenced by his mother and police” to identify the two men in his driveway as being part of the robbery, Partlow said.
“We believe they did inadvertently influence the young man to identify the wrong man,” Partlow said.
Among the items stolen were a 40-inch television, Wii and Playstation game consoles, about a dozen games for each system, two class rings, other jewelry, cash and a green blanket made by a family member. All but the television were returned to the family the same day.
If Beaver is convicted, he could get up to 18 years in prison.
Thompson pleaded guilty to the same two charges Dec. 6 and awaits sentencing.
Closing arguments will be given at 10 a.m. today with jury deliberations to begin after that.