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WARREN – A charge of attempted rape was added Friday to the now four-count complaint against a 15-year-old Niles boy charged with aggravated murder in the March 31 death of an elderly Niles woman in her home.
Jacob LaRosa, who is accused of killing Marie Belcastro, appeared at a family court hearing Friday. The teen also faces charges of aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery.
Search warrants of LaRosa’s 502 Lafayette Ave. home and body were first made public Friday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court and include new information about the crime scene discovered in Belcastro’s 509 Cherry Ave. home after the 94-year-old woman’s daughter came to visit her about 5:30 p.m. the day she was killed.
Belcastro’s body was discovered, “on the floor with no pants on” with her legs “twisted in a fetal like position,” the document unsealed by Judge W. Wyatt McKay states.
Bloody drag marks created a path from Belcastro’s living room through the dining room and hallway, into the bedroom. Her pants and underwear were found in the living room. “Blood cast off” was discovered in the living room and “what appeared to be a second area of assault in the dining room area,” the document states. Officers discovered two bloody foot prints in the home.
Officer Todd Mobley arrived at LaRosa’s home about the time Belcastro was discovered. Upon entering the home, Mobley noticed pants and shoes on the kitchen floor, which were later confiscated, according to the search warrant.
LaRosa was found vomiting upstairs, halfway between the bathroom and the hallway, Mobley states; and “(LaRosa) had blood on his hands and underwear but no pants on.”
According to the search warrant, police Lt. Dan Adkins read LaRosa his rights at St. Joseph Warren Hospital after he was transported there for treatment. During questioning, LaRosa first denied being in the house, but said, “he had heard screams and saw other people in the house,” the document states. LaRosa, Adkins states, then admitted he had been in Belcastro’s home in the morning to get $10.
At the hospital, officials reported LaRosa had blood on his hands and genitals, the document states. Swabs of various parts of his body were collected at the hospital after McKay signed the search warrant at 10:40 that night.
Officers collected two pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a set of eye glasses and swab of a “reddish brown stain” from the glasses recovered at the Lafayette Avenue home.
In court Friday, Trumbull County Family Court Judge Sandra Stabile Harwood explained the charges to LaRosa and described the penalties for each count, the equivalent of an arraignment but without a plea requirement.
The harshest penalties LaRosa faces, if found guilty on the aggravated murder charge, is a life sentence without parole, if tried as an adult; and a life sentence with the option for parole after 20, 25 or 30 years, if tried as a juvenile with a discretionary adult sentence option. Without the adult portion of the sentence, LaRosa, if found guilty, could be released at the age of 21.
During LaRosa’s next court appearance April 30, Trumbull County assistant prosecutors Stanley Elkins and Chris Becker will present evidence for Harwood to consider when deciding whether LaRosa should be tried in family court, or as an adult in common pleas court.
Harwood also will schedule a determination hearing at which she will reveal where LaRosa will be tried. Harwood’s choice is based on her own discretion.
LaRosa’s parents, Edward LaRosa and Megan Lucariello, cried in the court room as LaRosa stared straight ahead and answered the judge, “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am.”
LaRosa continues to be held at the Juvenile Justice Center.