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Police say Tallmadge man whose body was found at Lordstown landfill committed suicide
By Ed Runyan
LORDSTOWN
A Tallmadge man, 45, whose body was found inside a large, steel roll-off container full of demolition debris delivered to the Lafarge landfill Friday, apparently hanged himself inside the container.
The suicide occurred as far back as October, shortly after he was sentenced in Portage County Common Pleas Court for setting fire to a friend’s camper in Brimfield Township, Portage County.
The Lordstown Police Department and Trumbull County Coroner’s office released details Tuesday of the investigation of the body, saying the man’s death was ruled a suicide.
Lordstown Police Chief Brent Milhoan said the investigation carried out by his department, the Trumbull County Homicide Task Force and Portage County officials indicated that the man had just left a medical facility in Ravenna in October, around the time he is believed to have found the roll-off container, gone inside and killed himself.
The container had been placed on Chestnut Street in Ravenna in late October to accept debris from the demolition of a former General Electric factory near the container, Milhoan said.
The driver of the rig carrying the roll-off container spotted the man’s body before he had dumped the contents.
The roll-off container is more than 6 feet high, Milhoan said, and the man was listed at 5 feet 11 in a Brimfield Township, Portage County, police report related to a July 24 fire involving a camper on Mogadore Road in Brimfield.
Brimfield police were called to the fire at about 1 a.m. July 24. They learned that the person who started the fire was leaving the scene on a mountain bicycle.
A Brimfield officer found the man not far from the fire and took him into custody. Officers learned the man had thrown a blue bag over a fence. Officers retrieved the bag and among the items inside were a Bible, diary, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, police said.
The camper, valued at about $1,200, was destroyed. On Oct. 19, Judge Laurie J. Pittman of common pleas court accepted the man’s amended plea to reduced charges of misdemeanor criminal mischief and attempted aggravated drug possession. He was sentenced to the 88 days he had already served in the county jail and was released.