Prosecutor opposes parole for rapist

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins says Terrance Stargell “is and always will be a dangerous person who must be subject to a lifetime of incarceration in order to protect society.”

Stargell, 50, has served 311⁄2 years in prison for robbing and beating a 62-year-old disabled Warren woman and killing her dog in 1987 when he was 18.

He will have a parole hearing in October.

Stargell and a woman, then 27, entered the victim’s home on Loveless Avenue Southwest near the former Warren Western Reserve High School. Stargell’s accomplice took many of the victim’s belongings.

Stargell, meanwhile, tied the victim up, raped her and killed her dog. Watkins said the victim went through “unrelenting terror” in being raped three times “over an extended period of time.”

Police were able to solve the crime by following a trail of the victim’s belongings to the home of Stargell’s accomplice. The victim identified the woman and Stargell through lineup photos.

A Trumbull County judge sentenced Stargell to 15 to 70 years in prison after being convicted of three counts of rape, one of felonious assault, one of aggravated burglary, one of gross sexual imposition and one of kidnapping, but Stargell was allowed to leave prison on parole in 2008.

He was sent back to prison in spring 2009 for violating terms of his parole by stalking a female manager at the Dollar General store in Campbell, Watkins said.

The woman said Stargell, who was living in Campbell at the time, tried to date her, but she was not interested. Stargell sat repeatedly in his car in the store parking lot while she worked and tried talking to her inside the store.

Store management ordered him away, but he tried to buy milk one day, then pulled a knife on a male worker and threatened him after the worker told Stargell to leave the woman alone. That was the offense that sent him back to prison, Watkins said.

Stargell also has committed about 70 violations in prison, including eight since 2010, Watkins said in an earlier letter to the parole board.

Watkins also provided the parole board with Stargell’s 241-page juvenile-crime history, which dates back to age 12. He was committed to an Ohio Department of Youth Services detention facility at 14.

Watkins notes Stargell has served less than half of his 70-year maximum sentence.

“This inmate should never be released again,” Watkins said.