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Daughter's plea: '...they should be tried here....'
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Davida Brown of Youngstown, a daughter of slain real estate broker Vivian Martin, wants the suspects charged in her mother’s death tried here. She is shown with a photo of her mother and a graduation photo of her mother and her sister, Donna James. In 2005, Martin received her master’s degree in organizational leadership from Geneva College, Geneva, Pa., and James received her master’s degree in business administration from Youngstown State University, where she is a payroll specialist.
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Realtor Vivian Martin
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Robert Brooks
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Grant Cooper
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
milliken@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
The daughter of a murdered real-estate broker said she wants to see the suspects in that crime tried here, not in another county.
“They didn’t give my mother a chance,” said Davida Brown of Youngstown, a daughter of Vivian Martin, the 67-year-old
broker killed in an East Side house she had listed for sale.
“They murdered her here, and they should be tried and convicted here,” Brown said, referring to the suspects. “They confessed to everything.”
Dawn Cantalamessa, an assistant county prosecutor, confirmed that in a Vindicator interview. “They both confessed, so we’re pretty much ready to go” to trial, Cantalamessa said in a story published Jan. 2.
Robert S. Brooks, 26, of Castalia Avenue, and Grant P. Cooper, 21, of Sulgrave Drive, Brookfield, face the death penalty if they’re convicted in the Sept. 20 murder of Martin.
Lawyers for Brooks filed a motion last week asking Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to move the trial to another Ohio county because of extensive pretrial publicity they said would bias potential jurors here.
The defense lawyers also filed a motion asking Judge Evans to impose a gag order to bar prosecutors and other government officials from discussing the case with the media.
In that motion, Attys. Ronald D. Yarwood and James S. Gentile specifically objected to Cantalamessa’s statement about the defendants’ confessions, saying such public statements could prejudice potential jurors.
Judge Evans has not ruled on either of the motions, which were filed Jan. 13.
Thomas E. Zena, a lawyer for Cooper, said he’d also file a motion to move his client’s trial elsewhere, but Brown said Judge Evans should defer ruling on motions to move the trials until after jury selection is attempted here.
Brown also said she would support a gag order to avoid putting more information about the case into the media, which she believes would make it harder to seat an impartial jury here.
Brown, reacting to a Saturday Vindicator story about the two defense motions, said, however, she “could live with” a sentence of life without parole for the defendants if they plead guilty as charged to all counts.
Brown said this is not the first time she has confronted violence, noting she survived a felonious assault by a young male neighbor who tried to choke her in her residence when she lived in Struthers.
“Now I’m in so much fear,” Brown said. Her assailant went to prison for four years.
“I fought for my life. He was actually trying to kill me. I fought for 45 minutes, so I know how my mom felt. But she had to fight two instead of one,” Brown said.
“It frightened me, and with her getting killed, I’m always looking around,” Brown said. “I’m constantly looking out the windows to make sure nobody’s trying to break in” when at home, Brown said. “Before I get out of my car in the garage, I make sure the garage door is down before I come into the house.”
Martin’s badly burned body was found inside a Nelson Avenue house that had been set afire. The house had been listed for sale by Martin’s real-estate business, Essence Realty.
Brown said her family is proposing legislation that would enable real-estate sales agents to carry with them a push-button alarm system that would allow them to instantly summon police if they are attacked while performing their jobs.
Brooks and Cooper face charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated arson and kidnapping in Martin’s death.
Brown said her mother had survived colon and liver cancer and had completed her last chemotherapy treatment two weeks before she was slain.
She said she would have preferred that her mother would have died of cancer because family members would have had time to comfort her, care for her and prepare themselves for her death.
A bookshelf in Brown’s residence bearing photos of Martin with other family members serves as a memorial corner and bears a plaque inscribed with the words: “No farewell words were spoken. No time to say goodbye. You were gone before we knew it, and only God knows why.”