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Ferrara bill of particulars filed
By joe gorman
youngstown
There is relatively no new information in a bill of particulars filed by prosecutors against a man accused of a triple homicide in 1974.
The document, filed in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Aug. 13 and available Monday, gives no new information into why prosecutors indicted James Ferrara, 64, in the December 1974 murders of Benjamin Marsh, 33; his wife, Marilyn, 32; and their 4-year-old daughter, Heather, inside their South Turner Road home in Canfield Township.
Ferrara was indicted in the crimes in June by a grand jury after detectives from the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office said fingerprint evidence from the crime scene, resubmitted for additional testing, matched Ferrara.
The Marshes’ 1-year-old son, Christopher, was unharmed and found crawling in his mother’s blood when deputies arrived. He was adopted by relatives in the Cleveland area.
A bill of particulars is a court document filed by prosecutors detailing their evidence against a defendant in a criminal case.
In the Ferrara case, it says that Ferrara broke a window and kicked in a door while Benjamin Marsh was home and then shot him. The bill says he then shot and beat Marilyn Marsh and beat Heather to death.
For that he faces charges of aggravated burglary and three counts of aggravated murder.
It says he stole their car, which later was found at the Kmart on Mahoning Avenue. For that he faces a charge of aggravated robbery.
Prosecutors and detectives have refused to discuss a motive since they announced the indictment. Benjamin Marsh was a security guard at the General Motors Lords-town Plant at the time he was killed, and Ferrara also worked at the plant.
Ferrara has been serving a life prison sentence since 1984 for a drug-related double homicide in the Columbus area in 1983.
His trial is scheduled before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in October.