Family, prosecutor remember 1988 city attack, slaying

Oppose parole for Christopher Daniel

WARREN -- Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins remembers the date of Aug. 15, 1988, the day a senior married couple -- George and Katherine Melnick -- was viciously attacked in their southeast Warren home.

"I can't express in words the surreal tragedy and suffering the victim, the family, their church and community endured at the time," said the longtime prosecutor who worked the case to convict Christopher Daniel as a co-defendant in the crimes.

Daniel was sentenced to 37 to 100 years in prison as an accomplice for defendant Andre "Flip" Williams, who received the death penalty and remains on death row in the Ohio penal system.

Daniel, 54, is scheduled for a parole hearing this month outside his cell at Lake Erie Correctional Institution. Watkins had written a letter last month to the parole board opposing Daniel's release as he has done prior to similar hearings in 2019, 2015, 2011, 2007 and 2003.

George Melnick was killed by Williams, but Watkins said Daniel was his accomplice and attacked Mrs. Melnick with a piece of cinderblock. She was hospitalized for six weeks and lived the rest of her life with permanent injury and blindness, Watkins said.

Watkins said he and former judge and chief criminal prosecutor Peter J. Kontos and other prosecutor office staff worked for months with the Warren Police Department to put together a strong case for jurors to return guilty verdicts against both offenders.

Shortly after the trial, late Judge Mitchell F. Shaker wrote the parole authority to not even "consider Daniel's release until he had served 37 years of actual incarceration."

The prosecutor's office forwarded to the parole board videotaped victim impact statements. In 1992, Katherine Melnick and her son, young George, put together some powerful and emotional statements, Watkins said. In 2007, right before her death, a feeble Katherine Melnick was interviewed by then victim / witness advocate Miriam Fife, herself a victim of a heinous crime -- the brutal death of her young son Raymond Fife in September 1985.

"Those words have been heard by many different parole boards … words sometime can't do it alone especially when it may be a battle of good versus evil," Watkins wrote to the board.

Mrs. Melnick passed away in 2021 at a Youngstown nursing care center at age 88. Watkins said son George still is living and he and other surviving family members, in carrying the torch for justice, are totally opposed to Daniel's release on parole.

"They have notified us that they will request a full board hearing if necessary to continue their quest for a just punishment and praying that both Andre Williams and Christopher Daniel will never ever have another opportunity to kill any other homeowners or commit any other types of vicious crimes against anyone," Watkins wrote.

Watkins stated in his letter he always tries to be respectful in his attempt to persuade the board to "do the right thing."

"So let's go beyond words and to remember and not forget the Melnicks' memories and their cries for justice," Watkins said.

The prosecutor uses the words from the musical "Les Miserables," talking about "empty chairs at empty tables."

"The background is Mrs. Melnick liked to be in the kitchen doing dishes looking toward the windows in the late afternoon prior to dinner, while her husband George relaxed in his chair with the television or in another room, doing what they do on a hot August day," Watkins said.

But that normalcy -- which occurs in almost every Trumbull County home at the time -- is ended suddenly with the brutal attack. Watkins points out in the letter that Mrs. Melnick was found unconscious under the family' kitchen table and chairs, "now empty of them forever."

Now the letter turns to quotes from "Les Mis:"

"There's grief that can't be spoken, there's a pain goes on and on, empty chairs at empty tables, now my friends are dead and gone."

Noting Daniel's relative young age, his past criminal history and "sociopathic traits," Watkins said the inmate "will surely be dangerous to the community if released on parole."

"Moreover, under parole board guidelines, he should not be released, in our opinion, because of the heinous nature and 'unique factors' involved in the crimes against the Melnicks," Watkins writes.

The prosecutors brings to the attention of the parole board, the words of Daniel days after the "bloodletting." When talking to an informant, Daniel talks about the crime: "The window got broke because the b---- was standing by the window, it ricocheted off her head and went out the window, that's how the window got broke right there… I just popped that b--- … right off her head."

"Only a person with no conscience or moral compass could say such a thing after thinking about what he did and knowing the results," Watkins said, noting that Daniel has not yet served the minimum prison sentence imposed by the late judge.

Usually inmates at parole hearings are represented by members of the Ohio Public Defender's office in Columbus. Laura E. Austen, deputy director, Policy and Outreach for the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, said she does not comment on pending parole cases.