Man denied parole for another 10 years

Staff report

COLUMBUS

Richard G. Anderson Jr., who killed Charity Agee, 18, of Youngstown and Wendie Clay, 16, of Weathersfield, in 1997, will spend at least 10 more years in prison.

The Ohio Parole Board has ruled that Anderson, 34, formerly of Arms Drive in Liberty, won’t be eligible for another parole hearing until 2022. This was his first chance at parole.

Agee was killed Jan. 1, 1997, and Clay was killed April 2, 1997. Agee disappeared from a Youngstown tavern New Year’s Eve morning, the day she is believed to have been killed.

Anderson pleaded guilty in January 1998 to murdering both teens and received a prison sentence of 15 years to life.

Members of both families collected signatures on petitions that they delivered to the parole board in Columbus in April asking it to deny parole.

Police found the body of Agee, of East Florida Avenue, Jan. 3, 1997, alongside Slag-Crusher Road in McDonald. It was wrapped in garbage bags. The girl was last been seen in the Downtown Lounge on Elm Street near the Youngstown State University campus.

Police had no leads in the case until April 1997, when Liberty police were called to Anderson’s home by Anderson’s father, who found the body of Wendie Clay in a garbage bag in the family’s back yard. Clay lived on West Fifth Street.

Anderson, who had grown up in McDonald, was 19 years old at the time of the murders and had lived in Liberty for three years.