YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — A relative of the man accused of killing a missing Smith Township teen was a confidential informant to police during the investigation, a Smith Township police officer testified Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Sgt. George Starr, who was a detective in June 2009 for the department when Glenna Jean White disappeared, testified before Judge Maureen Sweeney that the relative of Robert Moore, 51, who faces a murder charge for White’s death, gave him information in 2011 on White’s disappearance and Moore’s connection with it.
White went missing June 2 or 3, 2009 after she was drinking with friends at an Alliance home where Moore was present. Her body has never been found.
Moore was indicted in December by a grand jury after the Portage County Drug Task Force took over the case when they received a tip while doing another investigation. Testimony in the case began Tuesday after a jury was selected Monday.
Prosecutors have said that just before she disappeared, White claimed that Moore tried to rape her, and Moore took her home. When he returned he was covered in mud and blood, prosecutors said. They say the crime mirrors the death of a woman in 1993 at Berlin Lake for which Moore served a 15-year prison term after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Starr, who now heads up patrol operations for the department, testified under direct examination from Assistant Prosecutor Michael Yacovone that he was given the case in August 2010 after he received a call from the Stark County Sheriff’s Office.
Prosecutors said in opening statements that a woman who was in the Alliance home with White the last time she was seen alive found out in 2010 that she had been declared missing and she made a report with Stark County officials, who in turn alerted Smith Township.
Starr said he talked to the homeowner and witnesses in August 2010 and said Moore was a suspect after he talked to them. He also served a search warrant at the home and asked the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation for assistance. They helped serve the warrant and took a rug and floor molding looking for blood.
Starr never said what the results were. Moore’s attorney, Jeffrey Haupt, tried to ask him during cross-examination but Yacovone objected, saying that Starr did not perform the tests himself. Judge Sweeney upheld his objection.
Starr said under questioning from Yacovone that when he received the case, he treated it as a homicide because White had been missing for so long.
Starr also said he checked out several tips that White was still alive but none of them turned out to be true. In his opening statement, Haupt said several people had seen White after her disappearance and that law enforcement did a poor job of checking those claims out.
Starr also did not testify as to what the confidential informant told him, but he said the informant sought him out in 2011.
Under questioning from Haupt, Starr said he never sought an indictment of Moore because he wanted more evidence, including White’s body, which has never been found.