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Moore found not guilty of aggravated murder

YOUNGSTOWN — The family of Glenna White and the lead prosecutor who tried Robert L. Moore of Alliance in her disappearance and presumed murder remained positive Thursday afternoon after a jury found Moore not guilty of aggravated murder.

The jury was deadlocked on murder, however, and Assistant Prosecutor Mike Yacovone said Moore would be tried again on that charge — despite the challenge of possibly another seven-day trial involving a victim whose body has never been found.

White, 16, was visiting a home on Alden Avenue in Smith Township when she left late June 2, 2009, with Moore. This was after White told others in the home that Moore had touched her inappropriately or tried to rape her. Moore’s girlfriend lived at the home.

Moore returned an hour or so later with blood and mud on his clothing. White was not with him, and prosecutors believe Moore was the last person to see her alive.

The trial was held in Mahoning County because Alden Avenue is in Mahoning County, but White’s home was actually in Stark County. Because of her poor home life, however, she was staying mostly at a friend’s house near Alliance in the months before her death, a witness testified.

The locations mentioned in the trial were throughout the area in or around Alliance that straddles several county, township and city boundaries. The investigator who brought the case to Mahoning County prosecutors after getting a 2020 tip about the White case is Ed Kennedy of the Portage County Sheriff’s Office. Portage and Columbiana counties are also close to the locations involved in the trial.

The case could have been tried in Mahoning or Stark County, because various aspects of the case took place in both counties, according to prosecutors.

The jury deliberated about two full days after about a week of testimony in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court before Judge Maureen Sweeney read the not-guilty and hung jury results Thursday afternoon.

There were no big winners.

Moore, 52, was still handcuffed and taken back to the Mahoning County jail after the results were read. He’s still being held on $1 million bond.

There were tears in the eyes of Sarah Raymond, Glenna’s aunt, as she spoke with three assistant county prosecutors after Sweeney read the jury results.

When asked about her reaction later, she said: “I’m grateful we are at this point (having finished the trial) and able to move on, and try to try it again and see how everything goes.”

Her sister, Elizabeth White, Glenna’s mother, who testified in the trial, said she would leave comments up to Raymond.

Moore’s attorney, Jeffrey Haupt, said he was satisfied with the not guilty verdict, “but it’s going to continue in some form for (Moore), so I can’t say that I leave here satisfied.”

White’s mother, and a friend whose family allowed White to live with them, testified to the rough childhood White had.

And, a Stark County sheriff’s investigator described Moore’s confession in 1993 to killing Virginia Lecorchick, 23, near Berlin Lake.

Moore spent 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in Stark County to involuntary manslaughter in Lecorchick’s death.

erunyan@vindy.com

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