Couple sought in Pennsylvania murders

A man and woman with Columbus ties are being investigated in connection with the slayings of two men whose bodies were dumped in a remote wooded area of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, court records show.

Pennsylvania is seeking to extradite Jasmine Browning, 24, of the Far West Side, who is being held in the Franklin County Jail.

Browning was arrested Monday. She is being held on a Pennsylvania State Police charge of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault to inflict injury and terror. Her bail was set at $1 million Tuesday, Franklin County Municipal Court records show.

A State Police detective obtained a search warrant in Franklin County seeking saliva or blood samples from Browning to compare with evidence connected to the deaths of Damian Staniszewski, 19, of Duncansville, Pennsylvania, and James Smith, 32, of Portage, Pennsylvania.

Staniszewski and Smith were reported missing by their families in March 2017. Hunters stumbled across what turned out to be the skeletal remains of the two men last September in a wooded area of Somerset County.

An autopsy found that both men had been shot in the head and suffered bluntforce trauma, court records state.

Browning’s boyfriend is a Columbus native and former resident who last year lived in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, court records say. He is in jail on unrelated drug and weapons charges stemming from a raid that occurred this past December in Johnstown, state police there said. The Dispatch is not identifying him by name because by Tuesday night he had not been charged with a crime in connection with the two Pennsylvania men.

According to the search warrant, investigators believe that Staniszewski and Smith had burglarized a “stash house” where Browning’s boyfriend kept a large amount of money and narcotics. Pennsylvania State Police investigators, through interviews, discovered that the boyfriend suspected that Staniszewski and Smith had ripped him off, court records show.

Browning allegedly lured the pair to an apartment in Cambria County that she and her boyfriend shared for a purported drug transaction, the search warrant says.

It is believed that Staniszewski and Smith were held hostage and tortured before they were taken by car to the woods in Somerset County, where their bodies were found, court records show.

Pennsylvania State Police confirmed Tuesday that they are investigating the double homicide but declined comment.