Trumbull prosecutor again seeks to keep murderer Pompie Wade in prison

WARREN, OH - Pompie Wade, 62, originally from Nutwood Avenue in Howland, has spent 39 years in prison for killing Dominic Chiarella, 51, and injuring Fred Piersol, 23, at the Austin Beverage Center in December 1975.

Wade was sentenced to the death penalty, but his death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1978 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared Ohio’s death-penalty law unconstitutional.

Dennis Watkins, Trumbull County prosecutor is asking the Ohio Parole Board to again reject parole for Wade. He will have a parole hearing next month.

Last week, Watkins wrote to the parole board, saying this is the third time he has urged the state to deny parole for Wade.

Wade was on parole for a 1972 manslaughter at the time he killed Chiarella, Watkins said.

“Since I was one of the trial prosecutors in the Pompie Wade trial in 1976, I know well the facts and circumstances surrounding the shootings of two innocent persons working and earning a living during the holiday season in 1975,” Watkins said.

“I know the victims’ families and the survivor of that night and the suffering. I also know the criminal history that Pompie Wade has,” he added.

“He truly is a psychopath’s psychopath and would be a clear and present danger to society if he should ever be released,” Watkins said.

Wade, then 21, and Mose Hurd, also 21, walked into the store in the Austin Village Plaza on West Market Street – Wade with a handgun, Hurd with a sawed-off shotgun – and committed a robbery.

But before leaving the store, Wade walked into a cooler where he had ordered Chiarella and Piersol to stand and shot them both. Two customers were present in the store during the robbery and heard the shootings in the back of the store.

Hurd was wearing a ski mask, Wade was not, Piersol told police later. Wade admitted the killing and robbery. Both men were arrested while riding in a car on Duke Street Southeast not long after the killing.

Wade was convicted at trial of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and aggravated robbery. Hurd was paroled after serving 14 years in prison.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2015/sep/2...le-psychopath/