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Closing arguments next week in murder trial
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Lorenza Barnette
YOUNGSTOWN
A city man facing the death penalty for a 2010 double-homicide will have to wait until at least next week to learn his fate.
Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court ordered jurors in the capital murder case against Lorenza Barnette not to watch local news broadcasts, read local newspapers or listen to local radio news.
Closing arguments in the case are expected to be presented Tuesday.
Judge Sweeney issued the order Thursday banning jurors from local news coverage in lieu of sequestering the panel of five men and seven women.
Barnette, 29, of Lora Avenue, and two other men are charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and arson in the Aug. 11, 2009, deaths of Jaron L. Roland, 20, of Fairmont Avenue, and his cousin, Darry B. Woods-Burt Jr., 19, of the city’s North Side.
The two men were found bound with duct tape and their heads wrapped in plastic inside the burning car.
Jury selection in the case began more than two weeks ago, and prosecutors have been presenting evidence in the case all week. Defense attorneys J. Gerald Ingram and Ronald Yarwood closed their case Wednesday without presenting any witnesses.
The defense and assistant county Prosecutors Rebecca Doherty and Dawn Cantalamessa spent the morning Thursday in the judge’s chambers, but would not say what issue held up closing arguments until next week.
Prosecutors presented a number of witnesses over the last several days.
One witness told the jurors that the two victims were “scared — crying — pleading for their lives,” before they were beaten and their heads wrapped in the plastic. That witness, who is in prison on an unrelated felonious-assault case, said he went to the location of the crime to buy marijuana at the time of the incident.
Lt. John Kelty, Youngstown police, described how investigators tracked down video surveillance of Barnette purchasing bags, lighter fluid, duct tape and bleach believed to have been used in the crime.
He also detailed how police found keys to a Dodge Caliber, cellphones and plastic bags at Moncrief’s home that led officers to believe the murders took place at one of the co-defendants’ homes.