Recordpub.com - A DEADLY RECORD: Seven behind bars for murder; most in Portage County history

By Dave O’Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
For what appears to be the first time in Portage County history, seven accused murderers are incarcerated in the Portage County jail, awaiting trial.
All are accused of taking part in serious assaults that resulted in the deaths of three victims.
• Jailed in the July 2 beating of Richard Lowther, 68, during an alleged robbery at his Rootstown home are Darrell Dukes, Jonathan Dukes, Jodi Fetty and Cortez Oliver. Lowther later died.
• Mark Mann is facing a March 1, 2010 trial for the Oct. 7 death of Samantha Anielski, 33, in the home they shared in Palmyra.
• Adrian Barker and Ronald Kelly were indicted on charges related to the Nov. 15 beating and Nov. 21 death of Christopher Kernich, 23, a Kent State University student. Barker will be arraigned on two murder charges Monday in Portage County Common Pleas Court.
Handling the suspects during their incarceration is a complicated process, Portage County Sheriff David Doak recently said.
He said the Lowther case is unusual because there are four suspects, which creates challenges for jailers.
Corrections officers must make sure the accused are kept separate from each other prior to their upcoming trials.
“We’re shuffling people around. It can get manpower-intensive,” Doak said.
If all the cases go to trial, the Portage County Courthouse in Ravenna could play host to seven murder trials in 2010. The volume of trials shouldn’t strain the court, Portage County Common Pleas Court Judge John Enlow said.
Cases are assigned to Enlow and fellow common pleas court Judge Laurie Pittman at random by the court computers, he said.
For example, the cases against Fetty, Oliver, Darrell Dukes and Jonathan Dukes in Lowther’s killing originally were assigned to Pittman, but Enlow said he offered to take on one of the four suspects in the Lowther case from Pittman.
Jonathan Dukes’ case is now assigned to Enlow, who also will hear the case against Mann for Anielski’s death, as well as the murder and felonious assault charges against Barker and Kelly.
“We’re pretty balanced. She (Pittman) has three, I’ve got four,” he said. “If the docket starts to get overcrowded, we try to balance it.”
Another concern that will be addressed is ensuring there are enough jurors for all those cases.
Portage County Jury Commissioner Marie Kunka said she draws 9,000 names from the rolls of active, registered voters to serve on the coming year’s juries each Aug. 1.
Kunka said she hasn’t received any special instructions, but isn’t concerned. Enlow said he will sit down later this month and make a decision regarding the prospective jury pool and whether to call more.
For now, he said he isn’t concerned about the effect of pre-trial publicity on the jury pool or finding enough jurors to serve. “I think we’ll be OK (for juries),” he said.
Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci and four felony division prosecutors likely will handle the cases, but there is another challenge in one case: Assistant Portage County Prosecutor Steve Michniak is not allowed to be involved in Mann’s prosecution because Anielski was his sister-in-law.
Vigluicci was in Columbus at an Ohio Prosecuting Attorney’s Association meeting this week and could not be reached for comment on any other plans he has to try the cases.
Another 2009 homicide — the July 15 beating of Jack Hargett of Stow on the south side of Ravenna — remains under investigation by Ravenna police.
Like Kernich and Lowther, Hargett was hospitalized with severe injuries but died three weeks later.
Ravenna police have released very little information in the Hargett case, but have acknowledged investigating more than one person of interest.

22.	Posted by MyThoughts December 8, 2009
	I do agree with MilitaryMomma to some degree. Free will plays a part, parenting can play a part, economy can play a part as well as our judicial system. Over all the bottom line is that we are in shambles. You can do the best you can with your children and still have them grow up in the environment of the city and make wrong choice. You can teach them right from wrong, but they make the choice to take that step into the wrong direction. Further to that problem, our judicial system just slaps these guys/gals on the hand instead of prosecuting them to the fullest extend and hence we have repeat offenders. The entire county moaned and groaned about lenient Laurie and the like. We got Plough in there and everybody whined because "he just wasn't fair". I'm sorry but that man was doing the job we asked him to do and that was laying down the law and hopefully saving a few innocent lives from a repeat offender that would otherwise be walking the streets. Eye for an eye would stop all this madness. We learn and lead by example. Show them that killing isn't acceptable by putting them in front of the county and hang 'em, guaranteed people as a whole would think twice before doing something so stupid and immoral. Just My Thoughts