Staff photo / Ed Runyan Mickele Glenn, 36, left, was sentenced Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to 29 to 34.5 years to life in prison in the Oct. 31, 2023, shooting death of Ed Lewis in Lewis’ home on Oneta Street on Youngstown’s West Side. His attorneys are, at right, Walter Ritche and Aaron Meikle.

YOUNGSTOWN — Leana Woolf, sister of murder victim Ed Lewis, 53, said Monday her brother was developmentally disabled, “like a kid in an adult body,” as well as kind and generous. He also was “an Elvis lover, an old classic car fan” and “knew right from wrong.”

Woolf’s family is “mad, angry, upset” that a female friend of her brother named Paris Jones, “was there” when Mickele Glenn, 36, killed her brother in her brother’s home on Oneta Street on the West Side on Oct. 31, 2023.

Jones testified at Glenn’s trial, saying she liked to go to Lewis’ house because it was a “safe place.” But Jones’ actions also brought Glenn to Lewis’ house, Woolf said. Jones testified that Lewis was her “best friend.”

Woolf said her brother “had to work a little longer to understand, but he was just that, a hard worker, who had more character, kindness, humble, generous and compassion than this evil person who took his life,” she said of Glenn, who appeared unfazed by the remarks in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Wolfe said that despite Jones’ actions, she hopes the woman “can rest, knowing she gave Ed justice. He did deserve it. But knowing you left him, your friend, for days with no one, alone, it’s just sad.”

She said Lewis’ family “cannot imagine the torture (Lewis) endured that night. We are sure he cried and begged for his life.”

She said Glenn’s “goal was to eliminate him from Jones’ life, not even thinking about everyone else’s lives that you took him from. You took him from a father, a brother, sister, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and friends. He had friends who were good to him.”

JUDGE

After Woolf’s remarks, Judge Anthony D’Apolito said Woolf’s comments “confirmed what I thought, that (Lewis) was a person who wouldn’t hurt anyone or anything.”

He said there are vulnerable people in the world “like Ed. They don’t ask for much from any of us. They give everything to us. And it wasn’t enough to just let him be. You had to go over there and shoot him,” D’Apolito told Glenn.

He sentenced Glenn to consecutive sentences on aggravated murder with a gun specification and and aggravated burglary totaling 29 to 34.5 years to life in prison, just as prosecutors had recommended.

Aaron Meikle, one of Glenn’s attorneys, asked that D’Apolito run Glenn’s aggravated murder and aggravated burglary offenses at the same time, for a sentence of 18 years to life in prison.

Glenn was convicted at a jury day trial earlier this month that included testimony by Jones, who said she was in the car Oct. 31, 2023, when Glenn got out at Lewis’ house, asked Lewis if he could use the restroom and went inside with Lewis.

After Glenn went inside, she heard firecrackers or gunshots while waiting in the car, and then Glenn came out. Two days later, she learned that Lewis had been killed, but she did not tell police what she knew until March of this year, about 17 months later.

She said she finally told a Youngstown police detective George Anderson what happened after Anderson came to see her. She still didn’t tell the detective what she knew. But afterwards, Glenn became suspicious that she did say something. That is when she contacted police, saying she was scared of what Glenn might do to her.

JEALOUSY?

During the hearing, Woolf addressed suggestions that Glenn killed Lewis out of jealousy.

“How can (Glenn) be so jealous of a man who was in special ed classes his entire school years? No one thought he would make it in the outside world on his own. So many people took advantage of him. They took his belongings, they beat him up if he didn’t give them money,” Woolf said.

“He would laugh it off, go to bed, get up happy, start a new day over,” she said. “He had not even a stove, a fridge or a microwave in his house that he was murdered in,” Woolf said.

But upstairs in the home there were “four brand new children’s beds, new mattresses” for Jones’ children, Woolf said.

Lewis had only been at the home on Oneta 2 1/2 months “trying to get back on his feet again,” Woofe said. “He asked for nothing but would give his last dollars or the shirt off his back if needed.”

Woolf said Lewis had “friends that were not related but referred to themselves as (Lewis’) nieces, brothers, sisters.” He was “always making sure they were taken care of first.”

Woolf said her brother was “the life of the party. We have also seen him pay rent for these friends’ places, yet throw him out in the middle of the night, below zero, no coat, only the clothes on his back.”

“As family, we told him to get away from people like that. But he would still refer to them as friends, family, homies, forgive them, and be back talking to them by the end of the week, as if nothing happened, again laugh it off,” she said.

Before she was finished, she said Glenn will ultimately “have to face judgment day” for what he has done. “We will see Ed on the other side. Rest in peace, Ed. Justice was served.” She called Glenn an “evil monster, who clearly had an issue with” Lewis being in Jones’ life.

Before D’Apolito announced Glenn’s sentence, he called Lewis’ shooting death “an ambush,” saying he believes the wounds on Lewis’ hand were “defensive. I’m pretty sure he saw you coming and tried to defend himself the best he could, and you shot him anyway, and then you kept shooting him.”

D’Apolito also said it appears Glenn killed Lewis over jealousy because Lewis helped Jones. Glenn did not speak at the hearing and showed little reaction.

D’Apolito described a photo from Lewis’ garage that he said left a lasting impression.

He said the photo showed “toy cars, two trophies and pictures of motorcycles. That’s all he wanted was this little corner of a garage of a home somewhere. Wouldn’t hurt anyone. And you couldn’t let it happen,” he said to Lewis.

“And that is what bothers me more than anything about this case,” D’Apolito said.

Jones testified during the trial in a jail jumpsuit after D’Apolito issued a material witness warrant for her arrest. She was ordered held in the county jail until her testimony was over because she disappeared and could not be located during earlier attempts to bring Glenn to trial.