Farmdale man expands on story of wife's murder as he's sentenced

WARREN — Ricky Green, 60, is the Farmdale man heard on a 911 recording calmly telling a dispatcher last Jan. 17 that he had just shot his wife, Janell, because she was having an affair.

She was dead of a gunshot to the abdomen when police arrived.

Green expanded that story Tuesday, telling Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court during his guilty plea and sentencing that he loved his wife until he learned that she had a boyfriend. That's when she started to tell him, "Why don't you die?" and told him she was planning to kill him.

But before Judge Kontos sentenced Green to 18 years to life in prison, Janell's brother, Craig Borsi, stood before Judge Kontos, telling Ricky Green, "Nice story, Rick. Nobody's going to believe it."

He then described the thousands Green "funneled" to Green's estranged son and the investments Green caused his sister to liquidate so he could put it into his cell-phone tower business.

"She took care of you for 17 years," Borsi said.

Near the beginning of the hearing, Green pleaded guilty to murder and a specification that he used a gun. Judge Kontos had only one option for Green's sentencing, 18 years to life.

The couple lived on a large, rural property on Wakefield Creek Road in northern Trumbull County.