CHARLENE NEVADA, Beacon Journal staff writer
The two women feel they have been raped twice -- once by Willie Lagway andnow by the system.
`But this rape was longer,' one of the women said Thursday, as Lagway'strial entered its second week.
It was more than 10 years ago that Lagway went on a five-DAY, crime spree, abducting and robbing six women and raping two of them.
They testified about their experiences a decade ago, and then they put the bad memories behind them and went on with their lives.
Then, shortly before Christmas last year, each got a call that changedtheir lives.
Lagway's conviction had been overturned.
A judge ruled that Lagway wasn't competent to have stood trial in 1983 and the judge who allowed the trial to go forward was wrong. Free Lagway, thejudge said, or have a new trial.
And so the six women once again found themselves in court.
`We're hurting so much,' one of their mothers said earlier this week after watching her...
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October 8, 1993 Section: METRO Edition: 1 STAR Page: B1
CHARLENE NEVADA, Beacon Journal staff writer
It has been 10 years since Willie Lagway went on trial in Summit County for a five-DAY, crime spree that included rape, robbery and abduction.
It has been a decade since six women took the stand to point the finger at the man they said did it.
Now they must dredge up those awful memories.
On Thursday, Lagway, 37, went on trial again -- for the same crimes he was first accused of a decade ago.
In 1983, a psychologist said the man accused of cornering six women indowntown parking lots wasn't competent to stand trial -- that, in essence, he was crazy.
But former Common Pleas Judge John Reece chose to ignore that report.
Lagway -- described as a drifter from California -- seemed competent tohim, the judge said.
And so the trial went forward.
Lagway declined to let his court-appointed attorney, Patricia Millhoff,cross-examine any witnesses....
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October 15, 1993 Section: METRO Edition: 2 STAR Page: A1 Memo:Also see Photo Story in 1x version - Rape, Robbery Unforgivable, Defendant Says
CHARLENE NEVADA, Beacon Journal staff writer
Willie Lagway sat in a quiet courtroom in Summit County on Thursday,looked at the women seated in the back and said only an animal would do thethings he did to them 10 years ago.
To those he raped, robbed and abducted, he said: `I'm not worthy to beforgaven (sic). But I am compelled to say that I'm sorry.'
Lagway, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, admitted from the stand that he committed the crimes he has been charged with and acknowledgedthe anguish and shame he has caused his accusers.
``Even if I be, you know, insane, still I should pay,' the soft-spoken 37- year-old said.
The confessions and apologies came as Lagway spent more than two hours on the stand in Common Pleas Judge James Williams' courtroom. Lagway hoped toconvince jurors that he...
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October 16, 1993 Section: METRO Edition: 1 STAR Page: C2
CHARLENE NEVADA, Beacon Journal staff writer
Jurors in a Summit County courtroom were asked FriDAY, to compare admittedrobber and rapist Willie Lagway to Alice in Wonderland at the point when Alice was talking to the caterpillar.
`I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir -- because I'm not myself,'defense attorney Pat Millhoff quoted from the famous Lewis Carroll work.
She asked jurors to think about Lagway, who is a sane man toDAY, trying to explain crimes he did in 1983, when he says he wasn't himself. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
But Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Michael George offered jurorsanother analogy to think about: The fox in the henhouse.
There are lots of henhouses in the city of Akron, George said. They aredark, unattended parking lots.
And Lagway, George said, quietly sprung into action at night and attacked women he found in those parking lots....
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November 26, 1993 Section: METRO Edition: 1 STAR Page: A1
VICTIMS OUTRAGED OVER PAROLE REVIEW RAPIST WILLIE LAGWAY TO GO BEFORE BOARD ONLY MONTH AFTER SUMMIT JUDGE SENTENCES HIM TO 109 TO 375 YEARS CHARLENE NEVADA, Beacon Journal staff writer
Convicted kidnapper, robber and rapist Willie Lagway has a date with theparole board Monday -- just a month after a Summit County judge sentenced him to spend the next 109 to 375 years in prison.
Lagway's victims are so upset that some of them are traveling to ColumbustoDAY, to tell their stories to an official at the Ohio Adult Parole Authority. `I'm outraged and I'm very angry,' said one rape victim.
The women are carrying petitions and letters from friends and relativesexplaining the trauma they have been through.
They were all abducted and robbed in downtown Akron parking lots during a five-DAY, period in 1983. Some of them were raped.
Lagway was arrested and tried later that year. He was convicted and...
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Akron Beacon Journal (OH)
December 6, 1993 Section: METRO Edition: 1 STAR Page: A1 Memo:Crime Front / Also see related stories
DAVID ADAMS, Beacon Journal Columbus Bureau
When Summit County Common Pleas Judge James Williams ordered Akron'sWillie Lagway to serve at least 109 years in prison -- and perhaps as many as 375 years -- most of his victims felt they could finally rest easy.
Six victims had testified twice to keep Lagway -- in prison for rape,kidnapping, robbery, gross sexual imposition and grand theft -- behind barsfor a long time.
But just last week, Lagway stood before the Ohio parole board, only a penstroke away from hitting the streets again after serving only 10 years.
While the board agreed to keep Lagway, 39, in prison at least five moreyears, he is almost certain to be out long before he grows old. And he is the rule, rather than the exception: Many violent criminals serve only a part ofthe sentences handed them.
The judge...
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Akron Beacon Journal (OH)
September 11, 1994 Section: METRO Edition: 1 STAR Page: B1
CHARLENE NEVADA, Beacon Journal staff writer
Some might say that a 43-year-old Akron woman has been raped three times -- once by a man and twice by the system.
The first time was in 1983 when she was leaving work. She was abducted from a downtown hospital parking lot, raped and robbed. And when the man who attacked her and five other women was caught, she did her duty and went to court to testify against him.
The second time came nine years later. The woman got the shock of her life -- a telephone call to inform her that a federal judge had overturned the conviction of Willie Lagway and that she would have to come to court all over again to tell her story.
She reluctantly agreed. But the experience took its toll.
In 1993, she lost several months of work -- both from having to be at the trial and from the psychological problems worrying about it.
After...
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Akron Beacon Journal (OH)
December 1, 1993 Section: OHIO Edition: 1 STAR Page: A1
DAVID ADAMS, Beacon Journal Columbus Bureau
Convicted Akron rapist, kidnapper and robber Willie Lagway will be in prison five -- and maybe 10 -- more years before he will be eligible again for parole, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority ruled Tuesday. Lagway is serving a 109- to 375-year prison sentence in connection with abductions in downtown Akron parking lots in 1983. Lagway's attorney, Patricia Millhoff of Akron, responded to the paroleboard's ruling by saying that Lagway has paid his price and that the extrayears of imprisonment are unnecessary.
``This is what we want from our state penal system,' she said. `He's been punished. He has demonstrated remorse. I think he's been rehabilitated. It'sour system at its best.'
But Summit County Prosecutor Lynn Slaby, one of Lagway's six victims and her mother expressed mixed emotions about the ruling:...
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By Michael Sangiacomo
January 28, 2010, 9:26AMODRCWillie LagwayAKRON, Ohio -- Willie Lagway has been in prison since 1983, when he raped and robbed six women, and Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh wants to keep it that way.
She is asking for a letter-writing campaign to the Ohio Parole Board asking them to deny Lagway's release at an upcoming hearing in February.
The Ohio Parole Board is considering the release at a hearing in February.
In a four-day crime spree in 1983, Lagway kidnapped two women walking to a car in the Akron Children's Hospital parking lot and robbed women walking to their cars in the parking lots in Akron and Barberton.
"All of the victims were robbed and two were raped," Lisa Holdt, spokesman for Walsh, said in a news release. "Lagway was armed with a knife and threatened the victims with their lives if they did not comply with his demands. Lagway didn't just commit these crimes and leave. He terrorized these women for hours and before...
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Jack SheaFox 8 Reporter
8:47 p.m. CST, January 28, 2010
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AKRON, Ohio - Michelle McAleese clearly remembers the day when she came face to face with Willie Lagway, an Akron man who would later be convicted of terrorizing six women during a five day crime spree back in 1983."As I open the car door to get out to brush the snow off, there's a man standing there with a knife and pulling the door open," McAleese described to Fox 8 News.She was in the parking lot at Children's Hospital when Lagway forced his way into her car.McAleese says that Lagway threatened to kill and rape her, but unlike some of the victims, she was not harmed because she convinced him she was sick."It was easy for me to fake throwing up, and I was gagging and coughing and turning myself blue and hyperventilating."In...
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