Last of five defendants sentenced in Liberty double murder

Last of five defendants sentenced in Liberty double murder

WARREN

James Christian, 24, of Youngstown will spend the next 18 years in prison for participating in the murder of Wilneice L. Green, 28, and her 14-year-old daughter, Ja-Brajasia, at Green’s home in Liberty in 2009.

Christian was the last of five people sentenced this month in the killing, which police say was carried out by Melvin L. Turner, 39, of Maryland with the help of the others.

Judge Ronald Rice handed down the sentence Thursday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

Police said Christian, Turner and Marquese J. Floyd, 32, of Atkinson Avenue in Youngstown, all went inside the Greens’ Northgate Drive home looking for Semmie Shorter, 38, planning to kill him for purportedly sexually assaulting a young girl at the Green home a day or two before the killings.

Shorter wasn’t home, and Floyd later told his girlfriend he didn’t know why Turner murdered the two women. “It wasn’t supposed to go down that way,” he said, according to court documents from the case.

Floyd was sentenced to 22 years in prison, Turner 19 years.

Two women — Denise Jackson, 31, of Trumbull Court, Liberty, and Appollonia Baker, 29, of Miller Street, Youngstown — were also sentenced for their role in the plot April 11.

Shorter later committed suicide.