Handyman sentenced to life
Charles J. Greene whimpered, cried and proclaimed his innocence Monday as he was sentenced to life in prison for killing an elderly landlady whose body was found stuffed in a German Village wishing well.
“There’s no DNA or evidence or nothing of me killing this lady,” he told Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty Blunt, his voice quavering. “I apologize to everybody, but I did not do that.”
In January, a jury convicted Greene, 54, of murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping in the death of 81-year-old Alyce Seff, for whom he sometimes worked as a handyman at her rental properties.
Beatty imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years on the murder conviction. She imposed 10 years each for the aggravated robbery and kidnapping convictions but said that those would run concurrent with the murder sentence.
Assistant Prosecutor Nancy Moore had asked the judge for maximum, consecutive sentences, which would have been life with no chance of parole for 35 years.
“The facts in this case are horrendous,” said Moore, who told the judge that Greene has a previous robbery conviction involving an 82-year-old female victim. “He has a history of victimizing older women.”
Seff, who was known to collect rents from tenants in cash and carry a large wad of it in her shirt, was found upside down in a decorative well behind one of her properties in the 800 block of South High Street on July 9, 2008. Investigators determined that she had been bound with duct tape and strangled.
No physical evidence linked Greene to the crime scene, but circumstantial evidence was persuasive enough for the jury.
The evidence established that Greene was using the victim’s cellphone shortly after she was last seen alive, and that he gave away her credit cards. His DNA was found in her stolen car. A woman testified that Greene had asked her to rob Seff more than a week before her death.
Defense attorney Frederick Benton argued at trial that possession of the phone and credit cards was not proof that Greene committed the murder. He revived that argument after the verdict, delaying the sentencing by filing a motion that asked the judge to overturn the jury’s decision.
Beatty Blunt denied that motion at the beginning of Monday’s hearing.
Greene testified at the trial that another man who worked for Seff gave him the phone and credit cards and said he had no idea that they belonged to Seff. He said he never drove Seff’s car, but his DNA likely was on the steering wheel from getting tools out of the vehicle.
He turned around several times during the sentencing hearing to apologize and plead his case to two people in court representing Seff — a friend and a niece.
“Wouldn’t you think some blood would be in her car?” he asked them. “Ain’t no blood in the car. My DNA was in the car way before Miss Alyce was dead.”
When the judge asked Greene if he understood the sentence, he wept as he replied, “I don’t understand none of it. Fifteen years for something I didn’t do?”
“Mr. Greene, I understand that you maintain your innocence,” Beatty Blunt said. “However, a jury did find you guilty of murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life.”
“Oh, my God,” he sobbed.