YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County judge will allow some damaging text messages a defendant allegedly made about his wife two weeks before she was slain at a Coitsville motel.

Testimony continued this morning in the aggravated murder trial of Francis Rydarowicz in the courtroom of Common Pleas Judge Anthony Donofrio.

Joann Gibb of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation testified for more than two hours about the texts. She read dozens among Rydarowicz and his sisters, and between the defendant and the victim.

Gibb, a computer specialist with BCI, has testified she was able to extract data such as text messages and social media posts. The damaging text extracted from the defendant’ás cellphone was dated June 9.

Donofrio issued his decision on the text messages this morning.

He had halted testimony Tuesday afternoon as prosecutors were questioning an investigator with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation who extracted information from both cellphones of Rydarowicz and his late wife Katherine.

Rydarowicz, 50, of Hubbard, is accused of killing his wife Katherine, 41, on June 22, 2019, at the Kings Motel off U.S. Route 422. He is charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault and domestic violence. She was found stabbed to death on the driveway outside the motel. The defendant also had stab wounds to the neck and left wrist.

During opening arguments, assistant Prosecutor Caitlyn Andrews said the couple had been estranged with the woman living in Pennsylvania and the defendant at the motel. Andrews told jurors testimony will show that she needed a car part and the defendant called her to come to the motel that June afternoon.

“He viciously murdered his wife,” Andrews told jurors, saying the man had stabbed his wife in the back.