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Poland man twice convicted of killing 3rd wife freed from prison
By Denise Dick
CLEVELAND
The Mahoning Valley man twice convicted of killing his third wife was freed from prison Friday.
For the second time in less than two years, Robert Girts, 62, a Poland native, pleaded guilty in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on Friday to involuntary manslaughter and insurance fraud in the 1992 death of Diane Jones Girts.
He also had pleaded guilty to the same charges in January 2014. But an appeals court decision required that he be re-sentenced.
So, he was sentenced Friday to 11 years on the involuntary manslaughter charge and one year on insurance fraud.
But because he’d already served about 18 years, Girts was released.
Judge Michael E. Jackson ordered him to serve five years of post-release control. He will have to report to a parole officer.
“I put cyanide in the salt shaker before I left for Chicago, knowing she would use the salt,” Girts told the court at the time of his 2014 plea. He read the same statement Friday.
Bettianne Jones’ late husband, Barry, was Diane’s brother, and she has been following the case since her husband’s death, attending hearings, talking to prosecutors and maintaining her own files regarding the case.
The latest development doesn’t sit well with her, although she is pleased with the five years of post-release control.
“Needless to say, I am extremely unhappy about his release from jail,” Jones said in a written statement. “But I am more unhappy about the judicial system. Since 1992 this entire case has been nothing but decisions reversed and appeal after appeal. One wrong phrase or word and the court of appeals reversed a decision because his ‘rights’ were violated. The entire 23 years the system worried more about his rights than the fact that he murdered Diane.”
She described her late sister-in-law as a “beautiful, loving, caring person.”
Nearly two years ago, Jones thought the ordeal was finally over.
“In 2014, he confessed in court that he killed her, and how he killed her, and was sentenced to jail,” Jones said. “The parole board refused to even hear the case for 10 years. But once again the court of appeals and the Supreme Court reversed the decision, and now, a year later, he is to be released for time served.”
She contrasted Girts’ sentence with that of bank robbers who are sentenced to 30 to 40 years behind bars.
“This man killed another human being and he is being released after 18 years because they say he served his time,” Jones said. “I wish someone would explain this to me. I wish someone would explain how the system could be changed. I am sure there are others in the same situation that I am in and feel the same way. Convicted felons have more rights than we do.”
A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge had sentenced Girts to an indefinite term of six to 30 years in prison and gave him credit for time served. In August 2014, the Ohio Parole Board decided that he would serve at least 10 more years before being eligible for parole.
But Girts appealed, and the 8th District Court of Appeals threw out both the plea and the sentence, finding that his sentence did not conform with the 2014 sentencing rules and had to be done over.
The new sentence follows the 2014 guidelines.
Girts twice had been convicted of aggravated murder in Diane’s death, but those convictions were overturned. In 2008, Girts was released from prison after serving more than 15 years, awaiting a third trial.
Between being released from prison in 2008 and going back in 2014, Girts, a former embalmer, married a fourth time. That woman, according to court documents, also was fearful of him. In those documents, prosecutors said they believed Girts used the Internet to look up antifreeze ingestion and had been visiting the woman at work and bringing her coffee. The woman had been feeling ill and vomiting, according to a court motion. Girts was not charged.
Girts’ first wife, Terrie, also died young, although her death wasn’t deemed a murder, and no charges were filed. He and his second wife divorced.
Jones said she is upset that Girts will released, “but I don’t think we have heard the last of him. His entire life has been destructive to others, and he will continue his malicious ways. I just hope no one else dies in the process.”