Opening statements, testimony begin in Smith Township cold case murder trial

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Defense attorney Lou DeFabio told jurors Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that no one knows if the teenager his client is accused of killing is even dead.

No one ever found the body o f Glenna Jean White , 17, who went missing in June 2009 after a party in Alliance, and there were reports that people had seen her after she was reported missing.

But White’s mother, Elizabeth White, testified after DeFabio’s opening statement that Glenna was never in contact with the family members who were closest to her after she went missing.

Robert Lindsey Moore, 53, is charged with murder. Prosecutors say he killed White, but her body has never been found.

Moore went on trial in 2022 for White’s death but a jury could not reach a verdict. Prosecutors opted to try him again. A jury was seated Monday before Judge Maureen Sweeney and opening statements were held Tuesday, followed by testimony.

Moore was indicted in December 2021 by a grand jury after the case was reopened by the Portage County Drug Task Force and new evidence was found.

White was last seen alive on June 2, 2009, at an Alliance home where she had been drinking with several people, including Moore. Prosecutors said White claimed Moore tried to rape her and Moore angrily took her home.

When Moore returned, he was covered in mud and blood, according to witnesses. A witness also said that Moore claimed he was stopped at a stop sign in front of a bar when White jumped out of the car and three men from the bar jumped him and beat him up.

Besides reports of people seeing Glenna alive, DeFabio said in his opening statement the prosecution’s case hinges on the testimony of a single witness whose statements have been inconsistent.

DeFabio also said authorities checked a tip about a year after Glenna disappeared and found blood but none of it was Glenna’s.

“There’s no body,” DeFabio told jurors. “There’s no time of death. There’s no place of death. There’s no manner of death.”

White was the first witness for the prosecution. She admitted to Assistant Prosecutor Patrick Kiraly under direct examination that when Glenna’s grandmother died in 2020, they listed Glenna as a survivor in her obituary so Glenna would notice.

“We were hoping Glenna would see it and come home,” White said.

White also testified that Glenna was very close to her grandmother and her cousins and none of them ever heard from Glenna after she disappeared.

She had people come up to her and tell her saw Glenna, White testified, but none of those people could ever offer any proof that Glenna was still alive.

Moore served 15 years on a manslaughter charge for the death of a woman in 1993 at Berlin Lake in Stark County. Moore’s previous defense attorney objected several times to allowing prosecutors to tell jurors about that case, saying it would prejudice juries against his client, but Judge Sweeney overruled each objection.

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