43
It’s all about Corinne; always will be
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
I saw Robert Seman fall to his death Monday in the Mahoning County Courthouse and all I can think about is the murdered little girl and her grandparents.
The death of Seman after a pretrial hearing in his capital murder case before Judge Maureen Sweeney in Common Pleas Court has certainly set off a furor of social media comments. Some were negative toward him. Some were positive that he is now dead. Overall, there was a sense of vengeance for the three lives he was accused of taking.
It is certainly nothing like I have ever seen in almost 25 years of doing this work – almost 18 years of covering crime.
I was coming out of Judge John Durkin’s court about 9:40 a.m. after checking on the status of a different scheduled hearing and was heading toward the steps to the third floor. My plan was to go to the jury room for a cup of coffee and then head to another courtroom to check on another pretrial hearing.
I heard a shout from above and looked up.
Directly in front of and across from me about two floors up I saw a body falling and let out a scream, from fright, I suppose, and even excitement.
I did not see or hear the body hit, but I was told by someone in another courtroom the whole building shook when Seman’s body hit the unforgiving marble floor of the courthouse.
It appeared he was breathing for a few moments, but lying on his side, he was not moving. A woman in medical coveralls came and offered assistance.
I did not even know it was Seman until I saw his attorney rush off the elevator, place a finger on his neck to feel for a pulse, then quickly back away. People came out of different offices throughout the courthouse, looking on, some hugging others for comfort, a couple were crying.
Someone said it was Robert Seman. I couldn’t believe it until the paramedics came and rolled him over. I could see his face for a few minutes until they placed a sheet over his body.
There was no blood, no mess.
Except for what he left behind.
As many people know, Seman was charged with the March 30, 2015, arson deaths of Corinne Gump, 10, and her grandparents, William and Judith Schmidt. Their home burst into flames just hours before Seman was to go on trial in connection with the girl’s rape, who was spending the night with her grandparents. Seman was free on $200,000 bond at the time of the killings. He was instantly a suspect.
The crime was so heinous that two attempts to pick a jury here, in a place where heinous crimes are sometimes commonplace, were unsuccessful. Jury selection was to begin Wednesday in Portage County Common Pleas Court after Judge Sweeney agreed to a change of venue.
Seman’s death has taken that away.
As a professional journalist, I was looking forward to covering the trial, in some sense. I wanted to see the attorneys battle and view the evidence, much of which has been kept from public view so far.
I wanted to know what really happened.
I may never know that now, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter when I look at the pictures of Corinne, a sweet girl who lost her innocence in a brutal way and then had her life snuffed out when the man accused of doing it was about to go on trial.
Gone, too, are the loving grandparents who were taking care of her.
Seman cheated justice once, and it would appear he cheated it again with his leap of death. Some may say that is justice, but I disagree. He needed to face his crimes and the horror they inflicted.
You can talk about justice, but in the end, there’s the little girl and her grandparents, and they were taken from their loved ones for no reason except, perhaps, someone didn’t want to own up to his actions.
I look at Corinne’s picture and see an entire life wasted before it began. Possibilities gone before they ever really existed. Friends and family haunted forever by her memory. And the man accused of doing it doesn’t have to face up to it.
Where’s the justice in that?
That’s why I try not to think about him, although I feel for his family who had nothing to do with his actions. But in the end it is not about him.
It’s all about her. And always will be.