vindy.com | ‘My life is in your hands,’ Louis Mann tells jury

Friday, October 25, 2013

‘My life is in your hands,’ Louis Mann tells jury

WARREN

Louis Mann, convicted of killing his mother and father, talked to jurors Friday morning in the penalty phase of his trial, telling them he will accept the death penalty if that’s what they chose for him.

“My life is your hands as the jury, and if the 12 of you decide to give me the death penalty, I will accept it and deal with it because punishment is something that has to be given for this.”

In what Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court called an unsworn statement, meaning prosecutors didn’t get to cross-examine him, Mann, 33, admitted that he killed Frances Mann, 53, and Phillip Mann, 59, and robbed them two years ago.

“First I want to say that what I did was wrong. I murdered two people. They were my parents, my mother and my father, and that’s something ... well, murder is something you don’t do.”

In the penalty phase, testimony is given to convince jurors either that Mann should be put to death or that he should receive one of the life-in-prison options.

Louis Mann said the memory of what he did is hard to live with.

“I’m sorry for what I did. I live with that every day. I know it may not be the same because they’re dead — they can’t live with it every day because of what I did — but it takes its toll. I think about it constantly, I dream about it.”

He asked the jury to spare his life.

“I very much so want to be alive for my daughters, both of them, [and] my son. I guess I’ll leave the rest of it in your hands.”

He thanked a Trumbull County jail chaplain, John Russell, who testified earlier Friday regarding the time Mann and Russell had spent together in the jail over the past 18 months, when Mann accepted Jesus Christ into his life and began to tell other inmates about the life he used to lead and the murders that resulted.

“I do read the Bible, I do read the scripture, I do talk to the other inmates, and the other inmates talk to me,” Mann said. “I mean it’s a sad thing to say that they look up to me for advice because of what I’ve done, but it’s the truth.”