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Homeless man charged with murder also suspect in incidents involving family
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Marcus A. Honsaker, 26, arrested on a warrant Thanksgiving day after being charged with killing a 71-year-old Atlantic Street Northwest man about 10 days ago, has been a suspect in three incidents involving his relatives since Nov. 17.
Honsaker was listed as homeless Thursday by Warren police, who placed him in the Trumbull County Jail on charges of aggravated murder and misdemeanor theft.
He was arrested at a house on Reo Court Northwest and has used an address on Delaware Avenue numerous times when taken into court on various criminal charges, many of them involving possession of drug-abuse instruments, according to police reports and court records.
Police estimate that 71-year-old Donald Giovannone of Atlantic Street died sometime between Nov. 18, when his friends last spoke with him, and Nov. 20, when Warren police found him stabbed to death in his kitchen.
Police said Giovannone’s pickup truck was missing from his home when they found his body. The truck was listed in a police database as stolen.
On Nov. 17, police called Honsaker a suspect in the robbery of a television set and $300 in cash from a home on South Canal Street Extension in Newton Falls, where his sister lives.
That theft involved someone breaking into the house during the day while no one was home, police said in a report.
On Monday, Honsaker’s grandfather, who lives on Andrews Drive in Bazetta Township, told Bazetta police that his bank called him to say that Honsaker and his girlfriend had come to the bank that day trying to cash a check from his grandfather’s account, but the bank refused to cash it.
Honsaker’s grandfather later discovered that someone had broken into his house that day and taken blank checks.
On Wednesday, Honsaker’s grandmother, who lives on Scott Street in Newton Falls with Honsaker’s mother, told police that Honsaker had pried open the screen door to the house that day, damaging it. The grandmother answered the other front door and told Honsaker to leave, she told police.
Honsaker has been in prison three times since 2010.
He pleaded guilty to felony identity fraud in 2010 and was sentenced to six months in prison.
He also was sentenced to six months in prison in 2012 after pleading guilty to receiving stolen property and forgery, according to Trumbull County Common Pleas Court records.
He was released from prison in May 2014 after serving a 12-month prison term for theft from an elderly person and three counts of forgery.
Honsaker likely will be arraigned on the aggravated murder and theft charges Monday in Warren Municipal Court.