A man charged with the deaths of five Ohioans has pleaded guilty to the murder of three victims, all of which were North Royalton residents.
Earlier this month, George Brinkman recently changed his plea to guilty to the aggravated murder charges in the death of three North Royalton women last year. Suzanne Taylor was found with her daughters, Taylor Pifer and Kylie Pifer, dead in their Ridge Road home in June 2017.
The bodies of three females were found dead on Sunday, June 11, 2017, at 11489 Ridge Road, just north of Wallings Road. A 911 call came in at 7:58 p.m. Suzanne Taylor, 45, was found with her daughters Taylor Pifer, 21, and Kylie Pifer, 19, in a bedroom, according to North Royalton Police. Brinkman, the 45-year-old North Canton man was charged with six counts of aggravated murder, three counts of kidnaping, one count of aggravated burglary and three counts of offenses against a human corpse for the North Royalton murders. He was also accused of the murder of Rogell Eugene John, 71, and wife Roberta Ray, 64, who were shot to death in their home in Lake Township in Stark County that same weekend.
Brinkman was taken into custody on June 13, 2017 indicted on June 27, 2017 and arraigned on June 30, 2017 where he pleaded not guilty to all counts. The trial started on Monday, March 26, 2018 in the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Peter J. Corrigan’s courtroom.
In June, 2017 the Stark County Sheriff’s Department charged him with the deaths of the Stark County couple. Brinkman has not changed his plea on these charges. After the Cuyahoga County case is completed, the Eugene case will take place.
A panel of three Cuyahoga County judges on Friday accepted Brinkman’s guilty plea. The panel consisted of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judges Peter J. Corrigan, Michael Shaughnessy and Timothy McCormick. Now that the plea has been accepted, the three judge panel will go into mitigation phase to determine whether the death penalty or a life imprisonment sentence will be handed down, according to Kathleen Caffrey, of the Cuyahoga County’s Prosecutor’s office. These hearings are expected to take several weeks.
By GLORIA PLEVA KACIK
Contributing Writer