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Trials severed in freezer murder case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A judge Tuesday agreed to separate trials for the couple accused of killing a woman and stuffing her body in a freezer.
Judge Lou D’Apolito also set a Jan. 8 trial date in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for Atruro Novoa, 31, of Mahoning Avenue, who faces charges of aggravated murder and abuse of a corpse along with Katrina Layton, 34, also of Mahoning Avenue.
Layton has signed a waiver to have her case heard in a timely fashion, but Novoa has signed no such waiver. He needs to be tried within the next 21 days or else the state would be in violation of his rights to have his case heard in a timely fashion.
The pair are accused of killing Shannon Elizabeth Graves, who was discovered in a freezer in the Campbell home of a friend of Novoa’s in late July.
Layton’s attorney, Lynn Maro, asked for the cases to be severed, saying that to have both defendants tried at the same time, the state must prove they conspired together, and Maro said that can not be proven. She also said that she would not be able to cross examine Novoa if the two were tried together because it would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self- incrimination.
Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Cantalamessa said she plans to use telephone recordings between the two at the jail to prove that the two did conspire together, but she added that the two are vague at times about their roles in the crime.
“They each have knowledge of what happened, but they are not really saying who did it for sure,” Cantalamessa said.
Maro filed a motion to exclude the recordings in her client’s case. Judge D’Apolito said he is inclined to decline the motion, but he added he will study the matter.
Novoa, through his lawyer, Jennifer Ciccone, said he is prepared to go to trial Jan. 8. Ciccone said she is also prepared to go to trial on that day.
Graves had been missing for several months before her body was found and identified. At the time the pair were indicted in September, police said a cause of death hasn’t been released since Graves was examined by the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office, but police have other evidence indicating she was killed. The indictment also says the pair killed Graves with “prior calculation and design” and she died sometime between Feb. 24 and March 1.
When the two were arraigned in municipal court, city prosecutors said Layton had assumed the identity of Graves, who was once Novoa’s girlfriend. Layton lived in the Mahoning Avenue apartment Graves had shared with Novoa and used Graves’ phone, credit cards and car. She also cared for Graves’ dog.
Additionally, the freezer in which the body was found was being kept at a home on East Ravenwood Avenue, even though the couple did not live there. Novoa moved the freezer to the home of a friend in Campbell after the home on East Ravenwood was experiencing electrical problems.
Novoa’s friends found the remains in the freezer while getting ready to make dinner and called police. They are not suspects and have co-operated with authorities.