Ohio man charged in 2 killings is suspect in 3 other slayings

Associated Press

CANTON

A man suspected of killing a North Royalton mother and her two college-age daughters was charged Tuesday in the deaths of a married couple afterward in another city, a sheriff said.

Stark County Sheriff George Maier identified the suspect George Brinkman Jr., 45, who was taken into custody Tuesday after a standoff in Brunswick.

Maier said Brinkman worked for Rogell Eugene John, 71, and Roberta Ray John, 64, whose bodies were found in their North Canton home Monday after their son grew concerned he couldn’t reach them upon return from a vacation. It appears they were shot, the sheriff said.

Brinkman was watching the house while they were away, the sheriff said. He was charged with two counts of murder, and investigators believe the couple was killed during a robbery.

Authorities in Stark County had been asked to look for Brinkman on Sunday because he was a person of interest in the deaths of Suzanne Taylor, 45, and her daughters, Taylor Pifer, 21, a fashion design student at Kent State, and Kylie Pifer, 18, a biology student at Bowling Green State.

It was not known how Taylor or her daughters died, investigators said.

Brinkman was in the custody of police in North Royalton on Tuesday afternoon. Court documents do not list an attorney for him.

The Johns were killed after the three women were killed in North Royalton, the sheriff said.

The couple had been in the neighborhood of one- and two-story brick and clapboard houses for decades and were nice but kept to themselves, said Taylor Brown, 24, a neighbor of the Johns’ in North Canton, Ohio.

Brown said he saw Brinkman around the neighborhood a few times.

Earlier Tuesday, North Royalton Detective Dave Loeding said Brinkman possessed evidence linking him to the deaths of the couple, according to a report on Cleveland.com.

Police say Brinkman had a handgun and was subdued with a stun gun during the standoff, which lasted more than eight hours. They say a woman who was in the house with him was unharmed.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus contributed to this report.