Jury selection underway for sixth attempt on murder case, delayed for seventh time

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — The retrial of an Alliance man who is accused of the death of a missing Smith Township teen has been delayed for a seventh time.

Judge Maureen Sweeney this afternoon declared a mistrial in the case of Robert Moore, 53, who is charged with murder for the death of Glenna Jean White, 17, who went missing on June 9, 2009.

Jury selection in the case began this morning but was derailed after defense attorney Lou DeFabio made a motion for a mistrial because of remarks made by potential jurors.

Prosecutors contend White was murdered but her body has never been found.

A jury deadlocked on the murder charge in 2022 and prosecutors opted to retry Moore. Since then, there have been six other attempts to bring the case to trial, and in April a jury was seated and opening statements were held before the proceedings were abruptly halted because of an illness in the family of Moore’s attorney, Lou DeFabio.

Moore’s first trial was in May 2022 . He was indicted in December 2021 after White’s case was reopened by the Portage County Drug Task Force, who received information on the case while doing another investigation.

Before the jury was seated in April, attorneys in the case tried five previous times since August to seat a jury, the last time being Nov. 13. Evidence issues have popped up at the last minute, and during one of the occasions when the jury pool was sworn in, one of the jurors made racist statements to other jurors because they said they did not want to serve on the jury.

White was last seen alive on June 2, 2009, at an Alliance home where she had been drinking with several people, including Moore. Prosecutors said White claimed Moore tried to rape her and Moore angrily took her home.

When Moore returned, he was covered in mud and blood, according to witnesses. A witness also said that Moore claimed he was stopped at a stop sign in front of a bar when White jumped out of the car and three men from the bar jumped him and beat him up.

Moore also served 15 years on a manslaughter charge for the death of a woman in 1993 at Berlin Lake in Stark County. Moore’s previous defense attorney objected several times to allowing prosecutors to tell jurors about that case, saying it would prejudice juries against his client, but Judge Sweeney overruled each objection.

There were witnesses in the first trial of White’s death who also testified that they saw White alive after the time prosecutors claimed she was killed.

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