YOUNGSTOWN — Lyric Moore probably will leave the Mahoning County jail one way or another in the coming weeks after waiting more than four years there on a murder charge.

Moore, 25, whose last address was on Tyrell Avenue, was only 21 when she was booked into the jail March 1, 2017, on murder and other charges in the death of Zachary T. Howell Sr., 40.

On Wednesday, before Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Moore rejected plea offers from Mahoning County prosecutors that would have resulted in a long prison sentence.

It means Moore is going to trial Tuesday. The judge told Moore not to expect to come to court Tuesday and accept the plea offer. By then, potential jurors will have been called to the courthouse to hear her case, Sweeney said.

“I understand,” Moore told the judge.

Moore’s co-defendant, Terrell Martin, 41, of Winona Drive, accepted a plea agreement in March 2020 to murder, aggravated burglary, two gun specifications and tampering with evidence. He received a sentence of 18 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors have said Howell’s body was found in his burned-out car behind a vacant house on Edgar Avenue on the East Side on Feb. 20, 2017. Howell was reported missing the day before.

Prosecutors said they don’t know the reason Howell was killed, but left behind in the van was a cellphone belonging to Moore. Detectives determined that Moore and Martin were texting each other Feb. 19 and Feb. 20, prosecutors have said.

Assistant Prosecutor Mike Yacovone told Sweeney during Martin’s sentencing hearing that the text messages are a “smoking gun, so to speak.”

Moore’s charges are aggravated murder, kidnapping, aggravated burglary and tampering with evidence. If convicted of aggravated murder, she also could get a life prison sentence.

Howell had started a campaign to run for Youngstown mayor around the time he was killed, according to news reports.

erunyan@vindy.com