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Mann indicted in slaying of parents
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Philip and Frances Mann “found good in anybody they talked to” and continued to help their son, Louis, even after they started to fear what he might do to them.
“They did everything they could for him, numerous times,” said Philip Mann Jr., 36, half brother of Louis Mann, 31, who is accused of killing Philip, 59, and Frances Mann, 53, last Friday.
“They were just great people. I am proud to call them my parents,” said Philip Mann of Middlefield.
While Philip Mann is making funeral arrangements for his parents, his half brother is in the Trumbull County jail, charged with crimes that could land him on death row.
A Trumbull County grand jury handed up indictments Thursday charging Louis Mann, of Warren and Newton Falls, with two counts of aggravated murder with specifications that he killed more than one person, committed a robbery along with the murders and that he used a firearm during the murders.
He also is indicted on aggravated robbery, accused of taking his father’s 1982 Cadillac DeVille after the murders, which occurred at the house where all three Manns lived on Jefferson Street Southwest.
Multiple murders and committing a robbery along with the murders are aggravating circumstances that can result in the death penalty.
According to an affidavit filed with Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, Louis Mann admitted strangling his mother with a clothesline during an argument, then killing his father by hitting him in the head with a flashlight and shooting him.
Philip Mann Jr., who grew up in Middlefield apart from his father, stepmother and half brother, spent summers with his father’s family in Warren and visited at other times, so he’s known Louis a long time.
“He’s always been a handful for them, out of control, and over the last three to four years, his drug habit got out of control to the point where my parents were on edge, and they feared him being around,” Philip said.
Louis and his parents lived most of the last 30 years at a house on Parkman Road Northwest but moved to Logan Avenue Northeast for a couple of years and then to Jefferson Street in April.
Louis, who went to live with his parents Sept. 27, just after he was released from a 33-day stay at the Trumbull County Jail for a trespassing offense, lived in “various places” over the years, in part because he was “in so much trouble,” Philip said.
Philip Mann Sr. was in the Navy, then worked as a truck driver, but he’d been unable to work for many years because of a back injury, Philip Jr. said.
Philip Jr. remembers that Frances would help Philip Sr. take care of car repairs by serving as his hands after his back injuries made it impossible for him to carry out those tasks himself.
Philip Sr. spent as much time possible fishing and hunting, and Frances also liked the outdoors.
Philip Jr. says he’s content to let the judicial system handle his half brother whatever way it chooses.
“All I can say is he deserves what he gets,” Philip Jr. said.
“If you ask me, he’s a monster. How could you do that to our own parents? You can’t understand how I feel right now towards him.”