17-year old accused of robbing woman at gunpoint; burning another alive

Only law-abiding citizens are waiting for April 8 to carry concealed firearms. As this story and the Ohio Crime Clock shows (top-right column at www.buckeyefirearms.org), criminals are not waiting, nor will they bother with the extensive licensing process once available.

Teen charged in killing also accused of robbery

March 23, 2004
Columbus Dispatch

First she was robbed at gunpoint outside her Gahanna apartment, making the 20-year-old woman cautious about leaving home.

Then she learned yesterday that the teen who will be charged with her robbery is also charged with killing a woman whose body was found less than 4 miles away in the trunk of her burning car.

"It didn’t hit me until afterward," the woman said last night. "Then when I heard they could be linked, it freaked me out."

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A Columbus police detective told the woman, who asked that her name not be used, that Marcus Sellers confessed to being the getaway driver in her robbery on Feb. 15.

Sellers, 17, could be tried as an adult for murder in the death of Andrea Nance.

He and Mifflin High School classmate Justin Robinson were charged Friday night. Sellers is charged with delinquency counts of murder and aggravated arson. Robinson, 16, is charged with a delinquency count of receiving stolen property in connection with the use of Nance’s bank card.

Mifflin students say they’re stumped because neither teenager has been in trouble before.

"He was quiet. He was nice," said Swannetta Parker, 18, a classmate of Sellers’.

She said Sellers played junior-varsity basketball and baseball.

Shawn Slade, 17, said his friend since sixth grade was "no behavior problem, but he wasn’t a straight-A student either."

When Sellers was taken in handcuffs from Mifflin High School on Friday, "I was thinking maybe he had some drugs," Slade said. "But nothing like this. He wasn’t violent."

Columbus police say that Nance, 24, was found dead in the trunk of her car March 9 about 4 miles from her home, which was about a mile south of Easton Town Center.

A bag of items from Meijer was found on the floor of her garage, making authorities think she had been grabbed as she arrived home.

An autopsy showed she died of smoke inhalation, meaning she was put into the trunk alive.

"It had to be someone with a wild mind to put her in a car and burn her. That wasn’t Marcus," said another Mifflin student who wouldn’t give his name.

Columbus Police homicide Sgt. Wallace Rushin said neither teen has a criminal past.

"Maybe this is the first time they’ve been caught," Rushin said. "They say with burglars, we catch them once for every 10 burglaries they do."

A Gahanna police detective said that Sellers has confessed to robbing the Gahanna woman on Feb. 15.

Sellers will be charged with a delinquency count of aggravated robbery today, Gahanna detective Ron Fithen said.

The Gahanna woman recalled what happened the night she was robbed.

She said two men approached as she walked toward her Arbors of Gahanna apartment after she returned home from a restaurant. "They were hiding between cars, staking out apartments, I think," she said.

The larger of the two pointed a gun at her head and demanded cash. She told the men, whose faces were masked by bandannas, that she had no money. The smaller man grabbed her purse and they both ran.

There has been no other arrest in that robbery.

Police searched the homes of both Sellers, at 3830 Kinsey Dr., and Robinson, at 2800 Bramblebush Court; judges sealed the warrants.

Byron L. Potts, Sellers’ attorney, said his client’s lack of a criminal record is proof he wasn’t involved in the slaying, which he called "sophisticated and devious."

"We believe that it’s a setup," Potts said. He said that Sellers is "distraught" over the charges.