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YOUNGSTOWN -- Court officials say everything is in place to start the trial of Robert L. Moore again Monday on a murder charge in the 2009 disappearance and presumed murder of Glenna J. White, 16.
Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court is presiding over the case.
The trial has been postponed repeatedly for multiple reasons, including an outburst the morning it was supposed to start from a potential juror who did not want to be on the jury; and a witness who was unable to testify because of an arrest several days before the trial and questions as to whether that arrest might need to be fleshed out by the defense so it can be introduced as evidence.
On the day the trial was postponed most recently, Mahonng County Assistant Prosecutor Mike Yacovone advised the court another attorney who was going to try the case with him had come down with COVID-19 and would not be available.
The issue of whether the witness's arrest would come up during the trial was still pending when the parties met Wednesday for a final pretrial, but it is unclear whether that issue was resolved.
In addition to the issues that have continually postponed the trial, the case has been complicated by geographical vagaries.
Glenna lived in the Alliance area in Stark County, but the last place she was seen alive was at a home on Alden Avenue in Smith Township, Mahoning County, near both Alliance and Sebring. A Portage County Sheriff's Office investigator ended up taking over the case and provided prosecutors with the evidence to prosecute Moore because another case he was handling overlapped with Glenna's disappearance.
Moore, 53, has an Alliance address, but his home was actually in Lexington Township, Stark County. Columbiana County borders the areas in and around Alliance where the relevant facts of the case took place.
Complicating matters a bit more, part of Alliance is in Stark County and part is in Mahoning County.
Sgt. George Starr, a sergeant with the Smith Township Police Department indicated last year the Stark County Sheriff's Office was the first agency to investigate Glenna's disappearance, but when deputies determined Glenna had gone missing from a home in Smith Township, "they turned the investigation over to my department," Starr said. He started work on the case Aug. 8, 2010 -- more than a year after Glenna went missing June 2, 2009.
Moore was at the home that night. Another complication: Glenna's body has never been found.
Moore is charged with murder, which could carry a penalty of 15 years to life if convicted.