UPDATE | Suppression hearing underway in Larosa murder case

WARREN — Two Niles police detectives and two patrolmen have testified so far in a suppression hearing in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court in the Jacob Larosa aggravated murder case regarding statements Larosa made the day he's accused of killing his elderly neighbor.

Chris Becker, assistant county prosecutor, said at the start of the hearing that prosecutors will not use statements at trial that Larosa gave to Niles police detective Dan Adkins the day of the killing, but if Larosa takes the witness stand during the trial scheduled for Feb. 12, prosecutors would want to question him about those statements then.

But Larosa's attorneys apparently want other statements suppressed that were gathered by Niles police, such as "utterances" Larosa made at his house after he is believed to have committed the murder of his elderly neighbor and at St. Joseph Warren Hospital a short time later.

Larosa, 18, is charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary and attempted rape in the March 31, 2015, killing of Marie Belcastro, 94, her her Cherry Street home.

Officer Todd Mobley said he didn't question the suspect when he responded to Larosa's house, but Larosa uttered multiple times "They are going to kill me for this."

When Larosa, then 15, vomited at around that time, Mobley could smell alcohol, he said.

Former Niles patrolman Mike Biddlestone, who now works in the Cincinnati area, also testified that Larosa appeared to be intoxicated when Biddlestone was guarding Larosa at the hospital.

Biddlestone said Larosa uttered comments that "other people made him do drugs he didn't want to do." The officer also said he spotted some long strands of hair on a sheet on the cot Larosa was resting on. He put the hair in a napkin and put them in the trunk of his cruiser.

An audio recording from Biddlestone's cruiser was played in which Larosa could be heard in the back talking in a way that suggested that he was intoxicated.

The first witness was Craig Aurilio, a Niles police detective who obtained search warrants to allow police to search Larosa's home on Lafayette Avenue and to obtain blood and other evidence from Larosa's body.