Ferrara argues against convictions in Marsh murders

January 13, 2015 at 12:03a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

A lawyer for the man convicted in 2013 of the murder of a Canfield Township family 39 years earlier laid out six reasons Monday why his client’s conviction should be overturned.

Atty. J. Gerald Ingram filed the brief of the appeal for James Ferrara, who was convicted of three counts of aggravated murder Nov. 21, 2013, for the deaths of 33-year-old Benjamin Marsh, his 32-year-old wife, Marilyn, and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter, Heather, inside their South Turner Road home Dec. 13, 1974. A 1-year-old son, Christopher, was found unharmed nearly a day later.

Ingram said that the trial court erred by abusing its discretion and allowing fingerprint evidence into the trial without properly authenticating it; allowed hearsay evidence regarding ballistic evidence from the crime scene collected in 1976; there was prosecutorial misconduct because Ingram said former assistant county prosecutor Rebecca Doherty commented on Ferrara’s invoking his right not to testify, which violated his right to a fair trial; that there was not enough evidence to convict Ferrara on three counts of aggravated murder, which also is the fifth prong of his appeal; and defense counsel failed to object to ballistic evidence collected in 1976 and did not challenge how the prosecution misled jurors when presenting testimony of further ballistic tests performed in 2010.

Ferrara filed appeals of his conviction and for a new trial Dec. 5, 2013.

Ferrara, 65, who also is serving a sentence for a double homicide he was convicted of in 1983 in the Columbus area, denied being involved in the crime even though his fingerprints were found on the outside of a door.

Those prints were collected at the crime scene and matched to Ferrara in 2009. He was indicted in the Marsh murders by a Mahoning County grand jury in June 2013.

After his convictions on three counts of aggravated murder, he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences with no parole by Judge R. Scott Krichbaum.

In the trial, prosecutors never offered a motive, and the big issue was their only piece of evidence linking Ferrara to the crime scene, a set of fingerprints found on the back door where detectives think the killer got inside. Defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on how that fingerprint evidence was collected, saying that a deputy at the time who assisted the main crime-scene investigator for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was inexperienced. The BCI worker could not be called to testify in the case because he died several years ago.

Ingram also raised in his appeal testimony that DNA found on a cigarette collected at the crime scene did not match Ferrara’s DNA.