Story and Video: Jury to begin deliberation in Griffin double-murder case
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ST. CLAIRSVILLE - The fate of Andrew Isaac Griffin is now in the hands of the jury.
After seven days of hearing from Belmont County Assistant Prosecutors Joe Vavra and Christopher Kinsler and Griffin's attorney Samuel H. Shamansky, both sides provided their closing statements on Tuesday afternoon.
Vavra provided a summarized version of all of the evidence and testimonies prosecutors presented to the jury, while Shamansky took aim at the state's witnesses. Griffin is accused of killing his Salsa Joe’s business partner Thomas Strussion and Strussion’s wife Angela Strussion and setting fire to their Trails End Drive home near Belmont on September, 21, 2021.
At the beginning of the trial, Vavra said that the Strussions’ murders were because of money and revenge. When Griffin and Thomas went into business together at the Salsa Joe's Elm Grove location, Griffin invested roughly $100,000 into the business.
The prosecution alleged that Griffin never saw any return on the investment and only ever received six or seven $1,000 paychecks the entire time the location was open.
Shamansky tried to cast doubt in the jury's mind by reminding them that Thomas Strussion's sister Lisa Balog and Angela's father Eddie Cutrer both testified that Thomas was known to carry large amounts of money around.
He also said that Thomas Strussion was known to be around several unsavory characters.
“Tom was being blackmailed. We know that he was dealing with unsavory characters and drug dealers and everything else," Shamansky said.
Leading up to the Strussion's deaths, Thomas was being blackmailed by Miana Maylyn Smith and Anthony Michael Dibacco $25,000 to conceal that he had an affair with Smith. The pair both received three years in prison for the blackmail.
Shamansky said that that just before the Strussions’ death, former Fox Run CEO Randall J. MacKendrick was at Salsa Joe's just before Thomas Strussion allegedly was caught on surveillance cameras having sex with a woman at the restaurant.
MacKendrick was arrested in August on local charges after allegedly attempting to meet up with who he believed was a teenage girl. One month later, while out on bond, MacKendrick was re-arrested for allegedly being in contact with a minor girl who was a former Fox Run patient.
"The CEO … leaves the bar, and wouldn’t we know? Tom decides it’s a good idea to have sex with this woman on videotape, and we know that a lot of people dislike Tom, and I’m not suggesting that that provides direct evidence of another killer, but it’s certainly worthy of consideration," Shamansky said.
Both sides also heavily focused their closing arguments on Monday's testimony of Griffin's former best friend Brett Cole.
Cole testified Monday that he helped purchase the motorcycle Griffin allegedly drove to Belmont County to murder Thomas and his wife Angela Strussion, suggested the type of gun to use and tried to dissuade him from setting fires in the house. Meanwhile, Griffin's attorney accused Cole of testifying solely to earn concessions to his life sentence for sexually abusing a child.
Vavra said that Belmont County Chief Det. Ryan Allar and Detective Sgt. Jordan Blumling testified about the state’s investigation and all of the steps that they took, and how they investigated a great number of theories, a great number of individuals, and how they kept coming up empty.
Vavra said that at first the detectives did not suspect Griffin because his phone was in Oklahoma when they got the records.
"It wasn’t until some incidents surrounding Brett Cole came into the light that things changed, and it’s got nothing to do with what he told us. That didn’t happen until years later. It surrounded a phone call and a motorcycle," Vavra said.
Cole previously testified that he purchased a 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan motorcycle from Cory White of Mineola, Texas, through Facebook Marketplace on Sept. 13, 2021. He said that he and Dalton Ray traveled to Texas to purchase the motorcycle with money given to him by Griffin.
Cole said that the motorcycle was purchased so that Griffin could take the motorcycle from Oklahoma to the Strussion's home to murder Thomas Strussion. He noted that killing Angela was not part of the plan.
In addition to the motorcycle, a pre-paid cell phone was another crucial piece of evidence for the state. The state alleges that Griffin purchased the cell phone at a Walmart in Marion, Illinois on September 19, 2021.
By using cell phone data towers detectives were able to track the phone from the Walmart to the Strussion's home and headed back to Oklahoma, but was deactivated around Benton Arkansas.
The pre-paid phone only made one call and it was to Cole.
Before both sides rested, Allar testified against Griffin as the state's final witness.
He said that once Cole agreed to cooperate, he came to find that Cole knew details about the Strussions’ murder that were not made public or even told to the grieving families.
Allar said that during the interview, Cole said that Thomas Strussion did not die right away.
"He was shot, a period of time went by, then he was killed. That is consistent with what we heard from Brett Cole, and that is a detail that, of course, we did not release to the public or even to the victims’ families," Allar said. "Brett Cole advised me that as he was trying to talk the defendant out of going to kill the Strussions but the defendant was very insistent. He had to go right now because Tom and Angela were planning to permanently move to Florida, and he had to kill Tom before that happened. And from our investigation, it was common knowledge, somewhat, that Tom and Angela were going on a short trip to Florida for Angela’s 50th birthday. Very few people knew about the permanent plan to go to Florida."
Shamansky called just one witness, Cutrer. Shamansky asked Cutrer if he participated in a podcast on May 12, 2023.
"You went on to describe that your daughter was sitting on the couch, right?" Shamansky asked Cutrer, to which he replied yes.
Shamansky then asked if he said that detectives could tell from her vape and her beer that she was sitting there on the end of the couch and Thomas was apparently on the other end of the couch but could not tell for sure which he again confirmed.
Shamansky added that during that podcast appearance, Cutrer detailed where Thomas and Angela Strussion were shot and that there were either three or four locations that had been set on fire the night of the murders.
He said that Cole could have heard the podcast and used it to his advantage to benefit himself.
Cole accepted an agreement for his testimony where he received immunity for his involvement in the plot to murder the Strussions in 2021.
As part of that deal, the state said it would try to assist in moving Cole to another federal prison. The state also put $300 in his prison commissary fund and gave his family another $250 to add to the fund.
"His testimony is bought and paid for," Shamansky said. "Now I think there’s probably a world in which you could rape children and still maybe be a truth teller or somebody reliable. I don’t really know because most of us aren’t around child rapists."
He added that the jury shouldn't believe anything that comes out of Cole.
Shamansky briefly spoke about Cole's ex-girlfriend Aimy Chase who testified that she became aware of Cole and Griffin’s plan after she saw that Cole had Griffin's phone while Griffin was traveling to Ohio. That way, she said, it made it look like he was still in Oklahoma.
"You got to believe Aimy Chase who lives with the child rapist, knowing he’s a child rapist. That’s who she chooses as her boyfriend. And then the government raises some issues like, 'Gee, how could Brett Cole know all these details? Well, what details does he really know? The whole world was talking about the details with the podcast, right? Those details were not unknown, and you don’t have to look very far."
Kinsler rebutted saying that the state's case is far more than just Cole's testimony.
On Sept. 19, 2021 a motorcycle matching the description of the motorcycle passed through a toll and was photographed on Lewis and Clark Bridge in Prospect, Ky.
White previously testified it was the motorcycle that he sold Cole in September 2021.
Griffin’s DNA was discovered on a motorcycle helmet the state collected as evidence. Cell phone data, and testimonies from Griffin's ex-wife Stacee Griffin and Griffin's life-long family friend Arthur Cole all played a major part in the state's case. Stacee Griffin testified that Andrew Griffin told her that he could make her disappear whether or not he was in jail. Arthur Cole testified about a time he was driving around with Griffin and Griffin received a phone call and said "I had to go get my money, and I killed two people."
The jury will begin deliberation on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m.