Local News
UPDATE: Man sentenced to 20-40 years for strangling wife
GREENVILLE — A Ghanian man has been sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison for murdering his wife, Brenda Agbley, formerly of Greenville.
Jude Agbley, 35, was convicted by a jury in November of third-degree homicide in the January 2009 strangulation death of Mrs. Agbley, 40, in their Pittsburgh home, according to the Associated Press.
Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Durkin last Tuesday called the crime “chilling,” citing the presence of the victim’s 7-year-old son.
Authorities said the couple had recently married and 14 threatening text messages on Mrs. Agbley’s phone indicated Agbley believed she was cheating on him. He testified they had gotten into a fight and struggled over a pair of scissors.
Immigration officials had been trying to deport Agbley since 2004 because of unrelated burglary charges, according to the AP story. They caught him a week after the murder in Detroit.
Agbley apologized to his slain wife’s family.
“I can’t believe he was sorry,” said Mrs. Agbley’s mother, Marilyn Allen, of East Fallowfield Township.
The sentencing was intense and emotional and Mrs. Agbley’s son from another relationship, Corey, said he misses his mother and also Agbley, whom he calls “Dad,” she said.
The court proceedings are over, but the family still doesn’t know why Mrs. Agbley was killed, Ms. Allen said. The same goes for another murder that hit the family in May 2008.
Mrs. Agbley’s former husband, Thomas Lorigan, and their daughter Heather Lorigan were stabbed in a brutal attack at Ms. Lorigan’s Greenville apartment.
Lorigan, 44, Greene Township, was killed and Ms. Lorigan, 23, lives with her grandmother, Mrs. Allen, and is still in therapy, recovering from her stab wounds.
“It’s still hard,” Ms. Allen said of dealing with both tragedies.
Krystle Sue Weaver, 22, formerly of Fowler, Ohio, was sentenced in September to two terms of life in prison without parole after a jury convicted her of murder, attempted murder and other charges in the case.
Ms. Weaver and her boyfriend Ronald Victor Machado had once lived in Ms. Lorigan’s apartment with Ms. Lorigan’s two children, who were present during the attack but unharmed.
Machado, 21, Jamestown, who was also charged for the attack, hanged himself May 24, 2008, in his cell at Trumbull County Jail, Warren, while awaiting extradition to Mercer County.
The Mercer County Public Defender’s office is appealing Ms. Weaver’s convictions in state Superior Court.
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Court nixes ruling man is sexually violent predator
State Superior Court has denied a local judge’s request to issue a precedential opinion in a rape case.
Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge John C. Reed had ruled that Chad S. Thompson, 24, formerly of Stoneboro, is a sexually violent predator, but Superior Court said in a 2-1 decision July 8 that an expert’s testimony was insufficient to back that declaration.
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Stacey wants to continue fight over razed home
Raymond Stacey has requests pending in three courts as he presses his long-running attempt to prosecute the city of Hermitage and those he believes are responsible for illegally demolishing his parents’ house.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, on April 29 quashed an appeal because Stacey did not file his argument brief and appendix of supporting documents.
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Burglars strike while residents sleep
Several Shenango Valley residents’ homes were broken into overnight Tuesday and Wednesday while they slept.
Two burglaries in Sharon involved people entering open windows.
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Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
Hermitage commissioners introduced an ordinance Wednesday to increase sanitary user fees.
Residents tapped into the Hermitage Municipal Authority lines now pay $95 a quarter. That rate will bump up to $105 a quarter on Jan. 1, under the proposed rate hike.
Two more hikes on Jan. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013, will result in the rates increasing 50 percent from the current fee. -
Water is on at Forrest Brooke
Water service has been restored at Forrest Brooke Manufactured Home Community after well problems left the 165-unit complex dry Tuesday.
A boil and conserve water advisory has been issued by the DEP and will remain in place until tests confirm the water is safe to drink, Forrest Brooke’s manager Pete Havens said.
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Storm damages trees, wires
Thunderstorms ripped through parts of Mercer and neighboring counties Wednesday night, downing trees and wires and keeping rescue workers on their toes.
A Mercer County 911 dispatcher shortly after 8 p.m. said they were busy with calls across the northern part of the county. He said there had been a few reports of trees falling on homes.
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City leaders open to talks
Sharon officials aren’t opposed to sitting down with their counterparts in Farrell to revisit the idea of combining the two struggling cities.
“It never costs a penny to talk and there’s no (idea) that’s not worth looking at,” Sharon councilman Ed Palanski said. “I think it would be foolish to oppose looking at the idea.”
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Murphy’s Law doesn’t faze regional planners
A complicated, two-day public meeting blitz in 32 counties ran headlong into Murphy’s Law in Mercer County on Tuesday.
The group Power of 32 are looking to re-write the regional map and create a grand, 15-year strategic economic plan for the 32 counties in four states that make up the Ohio River basin and greater Pittsburgh area.
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Forrest Brooke copes with water outage
Residents of Forrest Brooke Mobile Home Community in Jefferson and Lackawannock Townships woke up Tuesday morning to find they didn’t have any water.
Managers of the park could not be reached for comment, but residents said they were told they won’t get water service back for at least another month.
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City facing bleak financial reality
LaVon Saternow has been Farrell’s city manager since 1992. Shortly after she took the job, Sharon Steel, the city’s economic engine, officially closed down.
Since, the city has struggled to remain solvent and Mrs. Saternow said it is facing its worst financial crisis in her tenure.
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Court nixes ruling man is sexually violent predator
