Pictured are convicted rapist and murderer Hernandez Warren ( in brown suit and yellow-orange shirt), Victim and teen Gloria Pointer, Pointer's mother Yvonne Pointer, a community activist and women and children's advocate (in Black), and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (in red tie), who broke the cold case after nearly 30 years with DNA sampling. McGinty took the helm as county prosecutor in 2012.

Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper, Tel: (216) 659-0473 (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-After three decades of pain and grief following the unsolved rape and murder of her 14-year-old daughter Gloria, Yvonne Pointer, now a woman's advocate, a nationally recognized author, and a missing children's spokesperson, found some solace on Friday as the rapist and murderer of her daughter was sentenced to life in prison.

The sentence, which mandates that Hernandez Warren, 59, serve at least 30 years before being considered for parole, follows a plea deal negotiated by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty and accepted by a three-judge panel of Common Pleas Judges Michael Astrab, John O'Donnell and David Matia.

That deal also took the death penalty off the table.

Yvonne Pointer was likely spared what would have been years of appeals, legal experts have said, given that Warren originally pleaded not guilty and his lawyers tried to get his confession thrown out, saying their client's request for an attorney was denied by police who questioned him.

Matia, one of 34 judges on the majority White 34-member Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas General Division bench, ruled the confession admissible, saying that while Warren requested a phone call, he did not specially ask to call an attorney.

Warren pleaded guilty to charges of rape and aggravated murder as part of the plea deal.

A strong and brave Yvonne Pointer said at the sentencing that she will continue fighting to seek to eradicate violence against women and children and that she will advocate relative to cold cases, including the Cleveland East 93rd Street Murders. Still unsolved, those cases concern at least four women found murdered last year along a mile long stretch at East 93rd Street on the city's largely Black east side, namely Jazmine Trotter, 20, Christine Malone, 45, Ashley Leszyeski 21, and Jameela Hasan, who was stabbed 15 times.

"We are going to try to get some of the cases solved," said Pointer, also a community activist.

Gloria Pointer, who was Black, was raped and murdered on her way to Harry E. Davis Middle School on Cleveland's east side the morning of Dec. 6, 1984. Her lifeless body was found beaten and raped under a fire escape stairwell.

The case remained unsolved until McGinty took the helm as county prosecutor in 2012 and last year linked the killer's DNA to the teen's rape and murder.

A prior sex offender, Warren had originally pleaded not guilty and his lawyers said at sentencing, where he did not formally speak, that he has been "rehabilitated."

Community activists women disagree.

"We do not believe that Mr Warren, a child rapist and murderer, has been rehabilitated in any manner whatsoever because he has no soul, and no conscience, we believe, and for his lawyers to say otherwise at sentencing is irresponsible and insensitive to the victim and her family," said Imperial Women Coalition Leader Kathy Wray Coleman, who said that women of her group were at the hearing Wednesday to support Yvonne Pointer when Warren entered his guilty plea, and came back on Friday for sentencing.

"He is a coward that has been finally brought to justice," said Coleman. "And while we support Yvonne Pointer for her long term bravery and advocacy of women and children, collectively we hope Mr. Warren some day rots in hell for his crimes along with serial rapist Ariel Castro, and serial killer Anthony Sowell."

Bettie Simpson, a community activist and member of the Imperial Women Coalition, said that she attended the hearing on Wednesday to watch Warren plead guilty to the rape and murder of Gloria Pointer, and went to the sentencing on Friday.

"It was important that representatives from area women's groups were there," said Simpson.

Sowell, 53, sits on death row following convictions in 2011 on 82 of 83 counts, including multiple counts of rape and murder, including the 11 Black women that he strangled to death at his since demolished home on Imperial Avenue on Cleveland's east side. His convictions, including the death penalty, are on appeal before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Under McGinty's leadership, Castro, the most infamous of greater Cleveland rapists,  pleaded guilty last year to numerous charges, including multiple counts of rape and kidnapping after holding Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight captive for a decade in his since demolished home on Seymour Avenue on Cleveland's largely White west side. He hanged himself with a bed sheet in prison last October, just over two months into a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., defeated Republican primary challenger Matt Bevin Tuesday, clearing the way for him to focus his attention on the general election race.
Bevin, a local businessman, once seemed like a threat to McConnell because of his support from national tea party organizations. Just four years ago, McConnell watched a local eye surgeon named Rand Paul defeat the candidate he was backing, Secretary of State Trey Grayson, in the Republican primary to replace the retiring Sen. Jim Bunning. But McConnell got behind Paul and helped him cruise to victory in the general election. CLICK THIS LINK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT CBSNEWS.COM

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief,Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio- The East Cleveland Library Board of Trustees has rehired Executive Director Sheba Marcus Bey (pictured), whom they fired last year amid a fallout between the four male trustees, and the three women members. And the controversial library board, whose members are appointed by the East Cleveland Board of Education,  is back down from nine to the seven members as required by state law and  following a non-binding opinion by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine on the removal of two of its members.

That opinion says that the school board had no authority to remove then president William Fambrough and trustee Devin Branch earlier this year, both of whom had refused to leave their positions, saying the school board had no authority to remove them.

Otis O'Mays, a former East Cleveland councilman and Arlene Anderson, secretary for the Cleveland Chapter NAACP, had been appointed by the school board, which is led by Una H.R. Kennon, a former East Cleveland Municipal Court Judge and president of the Black Women's Political Action Committee of greater Cleveland, to replace Fambrough and Branch, bringing the number of library board members to nine.

All nine of them are Black, as is Keenon.

Keenon did not return phone calls seeking comment, though she had pushed for the ouster of Fambrough and Branch saying their behavior relative to Marcus-Bey was allegedly arbitrary and capricious,  and otherwise unwarranted.

Exactly what entity, if any, can remove the library board members for cause is not clear.

O'Mays and Anderson both received letters stating that they are now off of the library board, which is now led by President Charles E. Bibb Sr, with Fambrough as vice president.

The library trustees voted 4-3 late last year to terminate Marcus-Bey from her $105,000- a-year job just seven months into her tenure there and in the absence of either written charges or a formal complaint, or even a performance review since her hiring in June. 

Fambrough, Branch, Bibb  and Edward Parker, who has since quit and was replaced by Gerald Silvera, voted to terminate Marcus Bey while the three women library board members, Dr. Mary Rice, Leontine Synor and Terra Turner, voted against the termination saying the actions by their four male colleagues were irresponsible, unjust, and likely illegal.

"They terminated her without any information, charges or a complaint," said Rice at the time of the firing.