Staff photo / Ed Runyan Mickele Glenn, 36, is shown during a break in his murder trial Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

YOUNGSTOWN — The final testimony Thursday in the Mickele Glenn murder trial came from Youngstown Police detective George Anderson, explaining how he used cellphone data to identify the location of Glenn the evening Glenn is accused of killing Ed Lewis at his home on Oneta Avenue on Youngstown’s West Side.

Mahoning County prosecutors introduced the locational data apparently to support the testimony of Glenn’s girlfriend at the time of the Oct. 31, 2023, killing.

She testified to being with Glenn at the victim’s residence at about 6:15 p.m. that evening and hearing what sounded like firecrackers or gunshots coming from the home while Glenn and Lewis were inside. She said Glenn came back out of the house, and they left. Lewis was found dead two days later.

During his testimony, Anderson said he uploaded the huge amount of data regarding Glenn’s cellphone from his cellphone service provider into a program called CellHawk that allowed him to see the data plotted on a map of the Youngstown area. It showed Glenn’s phone in the area of Lewis’ home at about 6:20 p.m. that day.

After Anderson’s testimony, the prosecution rested its case. There were no defense witnesses. After closing arguments and jury instructions, the jury began to deliberate. But the jury broke for the night after 6 p.m. and will return this morning to continue deliberations.

MAPS

Under questioning Thursday by defense attorney Aaron Meikle, Anderson displayed on a monitor the way the software approximated the travel of Glenn’s cellphone on a map the evening prosecutors believe Lewis was killed.

“What CellHawk does is breaks all those records (of data related to a specific cellphone) down so that it is easier to understand,” Anderson said.

At Meikle’s direction, Anderson played the animation multiple times to show Glenn’s phone communicating with cell towers at various times depending on what towers were closest to the phone.

The animation showed a dot on the map of T-Mobile’s “best estimation as to where that cellphone is,” Anderson said. “Your cellphone is constantly looking for the best signal,” Anderson said. “It sends back and forth to the tower, trying to get the best signal.”

As Anderson played the animation, it showed that Glenn’s phone was on Youngstown’s South Side at about 4 p.m. Oct. 31, 2023. The animation suggests when a phone is on the move, Anderson said.

At about 4:30 p.m., Glenn’s phone was in the downtown Youngstown area and moving toward the East Side, Anderson agreed. At about 5 p.m., the phone was in the area of Shady Run Road and East Midlothian on Youngstown’s South Side, Meikle and Anderson agreed.

At 5:19 p.m., Glenn’s phone was in the Struthers area, where his girlfriend who testified against him was living at the time, they agreed. At 5:38 p.m., Glenn’s phone moved to the Youngstown State University area on the city’s North Side. At about 6 p.m., it was back in Struthers. Then it moved at 6:12 p.m. toward Sheridan Road and Midlothian Boulevard on Youngstown’s “Lower South Side,” Anderson said.

At 6:15 and 6:18 p.m., Glenn’s phone was heading west towards Youngstown.

“At 6:18, the phone has gone from Struthers, it’s heading toward Youngstown. And actually these are where some of the points were that were close to (Lewis’) house,” Meikle said, asking if Anderson agreed. Anderson said he did agree.

Meikle asked if at 6:20 p.m., the phone was still on the West Side and still moving.

“It’s hard to show on the map stops and starts of the phone,” Anderson replied. “It’s giving you a real time location where it believes the phone is,” Anderson said.

At 6:23 p.m., “we see the phone, we see some movement there. It looks like it is going up near (I-680), kind of northwest of Oneta (Avenue, where Lewis lived),” Meikle said, asking if that was correct. Anderson said it was correct.

At about 6:30 p.m., Glenn’s phone headed back toward Struthers, Meikle and Anderson agreed.

PROSECUTION

Under questioning by Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Katherine Jones, Anderson agreed that Glenn’s cellphone data placed Glenn within a quarter mile of Lewis’ house.

Meikle then asked Anderson if it is true that the mapping Anderson showed the jury from the evening of Oct. 31, 2023, placed Glenn’s phone “in the vicinity” of Lewis’ home.”

“It was in the area, yes, of Ed Lewis’ home,” Anderson agreed.

LOCATIONAL DATA

Cellphone locational data has been used in area murder trials for about seven years and played a key role in the aggravated murder trial of Brandon Crump in the 2020 killing of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney in a home on Perry Street in Struthers. Crump was convicted and given a long prison sentence in 2024.

In Crump’s trial, the data showed that the phones of Crump and co-defendant Kimonie Bryant were together on Perry Street in Struthers at the time of the 1:52 a.m. shootings and that their phones were together in Youngstown in the hour or so before and after the shootings.