43
Brooks gets 30 years in Warren girl's death, other crimes
Mother Talks of Losing Her Daughter
Video
Tiffany Knepper talks about her daughter, Alesha Bell, 18, who died at a house in Roaming Shores, Ashtabula County in summer 2015 after being abducted from her home in Warren. James Brooks, formerly of Warren, was convicted Tuesday in her death. The photos behind Tiffany are of Alesha and her other children and grandchildren.
By Ed Runyan
JEFFERSON
James E. Brooks of Roaming Shores will be in prison for 30 years, including eight for the death of Warren teenager Alesha Bell.
Brooks pleaded guilty Tuesday in Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court to charges of involuntary manslaughter and kidnapping of Bell, 18.
Brooks, 42, formerly of Warren, also pleaded guilty to gross abuse of Bell’s corpse and guilty to compelling women to engage in prostitution out of his rural home on U.S. Route 6 in Ashtabula County.
Taylor Cleveland, a detective with the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Office said, however, he does not believe Bell was ever a part of Brooks’ prostitution ring.
Instead, he believes Brooks lured Bell into a trap other young women told investigators started out with Brooks giving the appearance of being interested in them romantically only to have Brooks later demand they engage in prostitution for him.
Cleveland said Brooks had an “extensive presence on an online dating site,” and investigators interviewed two women Brooks dated in that way.
“At some point in the relationship, each of the women discovered that James Brooks was prostituting women and running a prostitution business,” Cleveland said.
Both women ended the relationship, and the home of one of them was later burned as an arson that is under investigation, Cleveland said.
Brooks was sentenced to nearly 22 years in August in federal court after pleading guilty to distributing heroin and crack cocaine, possessing a firearm during a drug-trafficking crime and being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
Bell’s remains were found Aug. 20, 2015, when the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force went to Brooks’ home to serve a search warrant as part of a drug investigation, but authorities already at that time suspected Brooks in Bell’s disappearance.
Bell’s mother, Tiffany Knepper of Warren, said a neighbor observed Bell getting into a truck with Brooks on July 23 in the street near the home where Bell, her young son and Knepper lived. Bell had turned 18 about two weeks earlier.
The next day, Bell texted her mother, saying, “Mom, if I make it home, I need you. I’m scared.” Knepper was never able to get back in touch with her after that.
Knepper and Cleveland say they wish Brooks could have gotten a longer sentence for what Cleveland calls Bell’s murder, but proving that Brooks killed Bell was complicated by Bell’s remains having been burned, he said.