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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Mom whose child breathed in crack cocaine fumes gets probation
DAYTON — A woman arrested after drugs were found in her 2-year-old son’s system was sentenced to five years probation on Tuesday, April 28.
Carissa Lee Hankey, 23, pleaded guilty Tuesday, April 7, to felony counts of crack cocaine possession and heroin possession, as well as a misdemeanor count of child endangering. Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances McGee sentenced Hankey to 90 days in jail but suspended that sentence.
Hankey and her son were taken to an area hospital on Jan. 14, after they were involved in an automobile accident in the 4300 block of Burkhardt Ave., according to police.
At the hospital, Hankey and her son tested positive for the presence of cocaine, according to police.
Officers determined Hankey had been smoking crack cocaine and used two other drugs at a house while her son was in the room, according to police. Authorities said they don’t believe the child was actually given drugs, but inhaled the smoke.
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Re-trial in aircraft safety inspector’s death continues
DAYTON — Testimony started Tuesday, April 28, in the re-trial of James A. Russell, as Montgomery County prosecutors called the prostitute who lured a 57-year-old federal aircraft safety inspector into the robbery attempt that led to his death.
Russell, 33, faced the possibility of life in prison until the Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed his 2006 murder conviction.
He is accused of killing Phillip Troutwine, of Arcanum, on Sept. 1, 2004, at the Auburn Avenue apartment he shared with Candace Hargrove. Troutwine’s decomposed body was found 24 days later in the trunk of his car, which was parked in West Carrollton. Authorities had been looking for the Arcanum man since Sept. 3, when his wife notified them of his failure to return home.
Troutwine came to the apartment expecting sex, but Hargrove, who did not feel like having sex, planned with Russell to rob him, she testified Tuesday.
Hargrove said that she had started a prostitution business using a telephone dating service, when Troutwine contacted her about a week before they were to meet at her apartment on the morning of Sept. 1.
Troutwine wanted to look around the apartment. “He looked nervous, like he was uncomfortable,” she said.
She was walking Troutwine through the apartment when Russell, hiding in a bedroom, surprised Troutwine and put a gun to his head and demanded money. The two were moved into the kitchen, Hargrove said.
“I heard tussling, and then I heard a gunshot,” Hargrove said. Then Russell told her “I didn’t mean to shoot him,” she said.
Hargrove also testified she helped Russell clean up the blood and move the body into the trunk of Troutwine’s car. The two then drove the car to a West Carrollton apartment complex, then they took a bus back to Dayton. They fled to Kentucky, then Detroit, then were arrested in Los Angeles on Oct. 25, 2004.
Hargrove, 24, who cooperated with authorities, pleaded guilty before the trial to charges of aggravated robbery, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse. She is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Earlier Tuesday, assistant Ohio public defender Theresa Haire told the jury that Russell was in Columbus at the time Troutwine was shot.
Haire was to cross examine Hargrove later Tuesday afternoon.
After Russell’s previous trial, Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael T. Hall said at sentencing that he imposed maximum consecutive sentences for the six felonies because Russell’s juvenile record showed he posed “the greatest likelihood of committing future crimes.”
As a juvenile, Russell served about five years in the Ohio Department of Youth Services system for his role in the 1991 fatal shooting of Connie Sue Trimble, 25.
The appeals court found that Hall erred when it overruled a motion for mistrial after it was discovered that a verdict form was mistakenly published to the jury. The potential impact of the improper inclusion of the verdict form could not be measured, and the probable speculation by the jury was prejudicial, tainting the case, according to the ruling.
