Murder trial for Williams IV continued

Staff reports

YOUNGSTOWN

The death penalty-eligible murder trial of Ricki D. Williams IV was postponed Monday, the day it was to start in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

According to online court records there will be monthly pre-trial meetings in the case until the new jury trial date, March 2, 2015.

Williams, 18, of Lans-downe Boulevard, has been charged with eight felonies, including two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of aggravated burglary, in connection with the June 23 murder of 16-year-old Gina Burger in Austintown in June.

One of those aggravated-murder charges was given a death-penalty specification by a grand-jury indictment July 10.

Gina had gone missing from an apartment in the Compass West complex in Austintown and her body was discovered in a landfill in Grove City, Pa., a few days later. She died from a stab wound.

A criminal complaint said that Williams admitted to authorities that he stabbed Gina and put her body in a playpen to transport to a dumpster at the apartment complex.