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Grand jury refuses to indict elderly Warren woman who confessed to burglary
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A Trumbull County grand jury has refused to indict an elderly Mason Street Northwest woman who police say confessed to committing a burglary and putting the stolen items in her yard sale.
On Monday, the grand jury refused to indict Cecelia E. Markwell, 68, on one count of burglary. If convicted, she could have gotten up to 18 months in prison. Markwell had never been booked into the county jail before her arrest on the burglary charge Aug. 27, according to jail records.
A Warren police report says a man, 32, of Mason Street came home Aug. 27 and found that a rear window of his house had been smashed out and his property stolen; then, he saw his property at Markwell’s yard sale almost directly across the street.
When police responded to Markwell’s house at 1039 Mason St. NW, the victim had confronted Markwell and was in the process of recovering his stolen items, police said.
Police arrested Markwell after she admitted to police she committed the burglary, according to a police report written by patrol officers.
Police said a neighbor saw Markwell on the victim’s porch a day earlier “looking through the windows” while the victim was not home.
Another neighbor told The Vindicator it’s clear to her, based on what she saw and heard Aug. 27, that Markwell was trying to protect someone else who actually went in the house and stole the items.
Just after Markwell’s arrest, Sgt. Joe Kistler, supervisor for the detective bureau of the Warren Police Department, said he was suspicious as to whether Markwell committed the burglary alone, but she admitted the crime, and Kistler said he had no plans to have a detective investigate it.
When Kistler was asked about the neighbor’s suggestion that Markwell was confessing to prevent someone else from being charged, he said it would be “up to the prosecutor” to guard against her getting a light sentence because of her age and health.
Diane Barber, the assistant county prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, said Monday grand jury proceedings are secret and she could not comment on the case.
The items listed as stolen included a 42-inch flat-screen TV valued at $1,000, a 32-inch TV valued at $250, $1,000 in baby clothes, $200 in tools in a toolbox, a power drill, 10 boxes of ceramic tiles and $3,000 in men’s clothes.