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Warren girl, 14, accusing of killing father, to remain locked up
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Bresha Meadows, 14, of Hunter Street Northwest will remain in juvenile custody while she awaits her next hearing in Trumbull County Juvenile Court, charged with the aggravated murder of her father, Jonathan R. Meadows Sr., 41.
During her plea hearing Tuesday, juvenile court Magistrate Monte Horton explained that Bresha is charged as a serious youthful offender, and that will involve juvenile and adult charges. Juvenile cases do not include the possibility of being released on bond, officials said.
The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office could ask for the case to be transferred to the adult court, but a decision has not been made on that, said Stanley Elkins, an assistant prosecutor.
Conviction in the adult court system could produce a life prison sentence, Horton said. If her case is handled in the juvenile system, she could receive juvenile sanctions or they could extend into adulthood, Horton said.
Bresha had to answer only yes or no to a few questions during the hearing as she stood with her attorney, Ian Friedman of Cleveland. She said she understood the proceedings. Her first pretrial hearing will be at 8:45 a.m. Aug. 30 before family court Judge Pamela Rintala.
About 3 a.m. Thursday, Bresha’s mother, Brandi Meadows, called 911 and reported that Bresha had shot her father in the head. He was dead at the scene, Warren police Capt. Robert Massucci said.
Police declined to discuss what led up to the shooting, but a family member said Thursday afternoon the killing was the result of “20 years of abuse” by Jonathan Meadows against members of his family.
Elkins said Tuesday that family members or others with information about such abuse should contact Detective John Greaver of the Warren Police Department. So far, witnesses have not told police about such abuse, despite such stories appearing in local news media, Elkins said.
Two aunts from Cleveland who tried to help Bresha in May, when Bresha ran away from home, have said the reason she ran away was because of abuse.
A May 29, 2016, Warren police report said an aunt told police Bresha ran away from home out of “fear for her life” because her father was “an alcoholic that becomes very angry when he’s drunk and threatens to harm her.”
The police report said Trumbull County Children Services opened a case into the matter at that point. The report said Bresha was going to stay with her aunt while CSB investigated.
She stayed with one of the aunts a few days and then returned to Warren, one of the aunts, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Vindicator Tuesday.
Jonathan Meadows and his family have lived in Warren for about 20 years, first on Wallace Street Southeast and then for several months this year on Hunter Street Northwest, a neighbor said.
Jonathan Meadows had no police record, and Warren police had no reports of domestic violence other than the one involving Bresha’s running away from home.
But Brandi Meadows received a protection order in family court in July 2011 against Jonathan Meadows, saying he threatened to kill her and the children if he found out she was cheating on him.
“In the 17 years of our marriage, he has cut me, broke my ribs, fingers, the blood vessels in my hand, my mouth, blackened my eyes,” she wrote in asking for the protection order.
“He was so controlling, I had to wake him up to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I had to stay on the cellphone talking to him when I had to run children to school or his niece to work or his mom to store so he would know I wasn’t ... talking to another man.”
Brandi Meadows asked for the protection order to be dismissed a few months later, and it was.
Friedman said after the hearing he would not discuss the facts of the case with the media but “looks forward to working with the prosecutor’s office” to provide information about abuse in the home so that prosecutors will understand the “unimaginable nightmare” Bresha “saw and experienced on a daily basis” while living with her father.