Watching a trial is a lot like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You get bits and pieces of information and have to figure out how they go together to make a larger picture.
Actually, it’s like two puzzles because the prosecution – or plaintiff in a civil trial – and defense often give you two versions of a story. The observer has to put each puzzle together and decide which one is the most plausible.
The John Zanolli murder trial was the rare case where each side agreed on many of the facts, including that essential fact that Zanolli, 62, killed his 65-year-old sister, Janice Zanolli, by shooting her twice in the head Feb. 26, 2025, in the home they shared in Masury.
The defense admittance of guilt was mindful of another Brookfield murder trial – the Kenneth Biros trial. His defense attorneys told the jury straight off that he had killed Tami Engstrom on Feb. 7, 1991, and spent the rest of the case trying to convince the jury he did not deserve the death penalty. The jury ended up recommending death, Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Mitchell Shaker sentenced him to death, and the sentence was carried out in 2009.
In Zanolli’s case, the prosecution is not seeking the death penalty. What’s at stake is whether Zanolli ever will be eligible for parole.
A seven-woman, five-man jury convicted Zanolli of aggravated murder with a firearm specification and abuse of a corpse. Judge Sean O’Brien ordered a pre-sentence investigation and has set a sentencing hearing for April 29.
A key element to the charge of aggravated murder is that the act be premeditated. Zanolli’s defense argued, in his case, that it was not, that he acted spontaneously. It was a “tragic act” but it was “unplanned,” said defense attorney Sharay Lewis.
The two sides also diverged on their interpretation of the facts concerning the charge of abuse of a corpse. The prosecution said that Zanolli allowing his sister’s body to lie in her bed for three days, until it was discovered on March 1, 2025, outraged community sensibilities, making his inaction illegal. The defense said his inaction did not rise to the criminal standard.
John Zanolli, center, stands for the jury during his murder trial. Also shown are his attorneys, Joshua Weemhoff and Sharay Lewis.
The testimony
The first witness was Linda Datillo, the girlfriend of Jeff Zanolli, brother to Janice and John. She noted that in her seven years with Jeff, she had never heard any “ill words” or “arguing” among the Zanolli siblings – four brothers and one sister – but that she had only met John “briefly, one time,” at a birthday party for the Zanolli father, F. Patrick Zanolli, a former Brookfield industrial arts teacher. He died Sept. 9, 2024.
John kept to himself in his room, she said in her testimony March 23.
On March 1, 2025, Datillo noted that they hadn’t heard from Janice for “quite a few days,” which was not normal, and she wasn’t answering texts. Jeff, 57, of Brookfield, testified that he received a call from his brother, Scott, who lives in Cleveland, that Scott had been contacted by a friend of Janice’s who hadn’t been able to get in contact with Janice.
Jeff and Datillo decided to go to Janice’s home on Third Street and check up on her. Jeff said they entered the home through a basement door he had a key to, went to her room and found her in bed. Jeff said he thought she might be sleeping and closed the door.
Datillo said it wasn’t like Janice to sleep that late. “Something didn’t sit right with me,” she said.
Datillo re-entered the room, saw blood on Janice’s head and an arm and on the bed. She told Jeff they needed to get out of the house, and they drove to the Brookfield police station on Strimbu Drive to report what they had seen.
The police station was closed – it was a Saturday – so they called the number posted on the police station door, which got them in contact with Trumbull County 911. The dispatcher told them to return to the home, but not to enter it, and wait for authorities.
The standoff
Testifying March 24, Brookfield Police Patrolman John Bizub, who has been with the department for 24 years and a full-timer since November 2020, said Datillo and Jeff told him John might be in the home and might have a .22-caliber rifle. He said he called for police from Sharon and Hubbard Township to assist him and they entered the house through the same basement door Datillo and Jeff had entered. While there, they heard footsteps above them, and decided to leave the house. Bizub contacted his superiors and used a loudspeaker to call for John to come outside, but John did not.
Brookfield Police Sgt. Cody Dean, Chief Aaron Kasiewicz and Patrolman Nicholas Leonardo arrived on the scene, and it was decided to re-enter the house and look for John, Dean said. As they made their way from the basement to the ground floor, officers checked rooms and looked in on Janice, who they believed to be dead. They opened the door to John’s room and found John sitting in a chair with a rifle to his head.
The prosecution played the recording from Dean’s body camera. Police ordered John to put the gun down, but he wouldn’t. John said something had happened that was “horribly wrong” and Dean responded that they could work things out, that his family was outside and wanted to see him walk out.
“You’re not in any trouble, man,” Dean said. “We don’t even know what happened.”
Dean, who has 11 years of service with Brookfield, eight years full time, also said, “Whatever happened ain’t worth taking your life.”
Dean continued to ask for John to put the gun down and tried to reason with him. Dean said that suicide attempts by gunshot are rarely fatal, and that the person often has to live with disfigurement. Brookfield police saw this first hand when Andrew Reedy shot himself in the head Dec. 20, 2024, after killing Jane E. Payton at her home on Lucy Street in Masury. Reedy survived and is serving a prison sentence of 23 years to life.
During the discussion, John mentioned a “pact.” He also said repeatedly “It’s too late.” At one point, Dean tells him, “I can’t get you any help when you got that gun.”
John said he did not want to hurt the policemen, but Dean said that by pulling the trigger John might put the policemen in danger. The bullet could ricochet, the shot might not go in the direction John intended, or a second shot could inadvertently discharge if the gun should fall, he said.
“You don’t know what’s gonna happen when you pull that trigger,” Dean said.
The discussion went on for about 30 minutes, then John took his finger off the trigger and reached up to scratch his head or push away some hair, said Kasiewicz in an interview outside of court. The chief did not testify at the trial.
Bizub fired his Taser, an electronic shocking device, hitting John, Kasiewicz said. The connection wasn’t great, but it allowed Dean to fire his Taser and police rushed John, subduing him and getting the rifle away from him.
“Bizub did an amazing job,” Kasiewicz said. “He saw an opening and he took it.”
Christopher Becker, lead prosecutor at the trial, said the entire department did a great job handling a stressful, dangerous situation.
“First and foremost, they were concerned about the safety of the people inside of that home, their fellow officers,” Becker said. “At one point, you might have heard on the body camera of officer Dean, as he’s in the room trying to get John Zanolli out of that room, he was radioing outside telling, ‘Hey, make sure nobody’s outside these windows. If things go bad, we want to make sure nobody outside is hurt.’ That’s a real credit to Sgt. Cody Dean and the Brookfield Police Department. And, the fact that they were able to bring Mr. Zanolli out without having to kill him is a real credit to the Brookfield Police Department. I certainly think the people that live in Brookfield should be very secure and know that their police department is doing a great job.”
The suspect speaks
John did not testify at trial but gave an interview the day he was arrested. He said Janice had been “ticked off” by the election of U.S. President Donald Trump. John said he also was unhappy, but not as much as Janice, who, he said, decided she did not want to live anymore.
Janice was unable to kill herself and asked John to do it, John said. He was then to kill himself, John said.
It took a while for John to get his courage up, but he finally did at about 10 p.m. Feb. 26, 2025, he said. Janice didn’t want to know when it was going to happen, he said.
Janice was in bed reading when John entered. “It’s time,” John said. Janice protested that it was not time, but he said it was and fired a shot. “She held her hand up at the last minute,” John said. Janice did not die immediately and her breathing was labored. John fired a second shot so she wouldn’t suffer, he said.
“I put one under her chin,” he said.
After that, John “shut the door and I left the room. That’s about it,” he said.
Under further questioning about what he did in the days that followed, John said he went to a Brookfield convenience store to buy cigarettes and a soft drink on Feb. 27, and to a restaurant in Hubbard Feb. 28 for food.
Bizub obtained video footage of Zanolli at the convenience store, and a copy of the receipt.
The victim speaks
Jeff Zanolli was asked about the family dynamic. He said the siblings would see each other on holidays, and that he had a “normal relationship” with Janice. It wasn’t unusual for him not to see John when he visited Janice, he said.
The last time Jeff saw Janice was Feb. 25, 2025, when he helped her with something at the house, he said.
Jeff was asked about a series of Facebook messages he traded with Janice starting on Feb. 22. She ranted about John. He had gotten fired from his job at a Masury convenience store about a week before the first message, was not helping out around the house and was not helping pay the bills, she said.
“He didn’t do anything, basically,” Jeff said, adding that he did not know this until receiving the Facebook messages.
The house was in probate since their father’s death and the estate was to be divided among the siblings, he said. Janice, who was executor of the estate, said John needed to find another place to live – she was looking for an apartment for herself – and wanted to kick John out of the house, Jeff said, but he added that she did not have a right to kick him out until probate was concluded.
Janice confiscated the cable box John used, which had been their father’s, and planned to return it to the cable company, Jeff said. Janice was retired, living off Social Security, and said John had “no compassion for my position” and “no grasp on reality.”
Janice called John a “loser” who expects to be taken care of.
“He will try to bleed me dry, just like (he did) mom and dad,” she said.
“She wasn’t gonna take care of him like our parents did all those years,” Jeff said.
John had lived in the house for about 25 years, while Janice had lived there for about 10 years, moving from Virginia to care for their mom, Dee, who died in 2021.
Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation Forensic Scientist Jordan Gardner holds the gun John Zanolli used to kill his sister.
The investigation
The remaining witnesses testified about the technical aspects of the case. Girard Police Sgt. Joshua Merrill, a member of the Trumbull County Homicide Task Force, and Brookfield Det. Jonathan Setser testified about the collection of evidence and taking of photographs to document the scene.
Merrill said they packaged up the rifle and found live rounds. Investigators spent “an enormous amount of time” looking for the spent shell casings, but did not find any.
Setser also attended the autopsy of Janice’s body and packaged the bullet fragments removed by the examiner to send them to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to see if they would match with the gun.
BCI Forensic Scientist Jordan Gardner received the Remington rifle and the fragments. He tested the gun to determine that it was operable, he said. The bullets were .22 caliber but the fragments were too small for him to determine whether they had been fired from that gun, Gardner said.
Dr. George Sterbenz, Trumbull County deputy coroner and a forensic pathologist, conducted the autopsy on March 4, 2025. He said Janice suffered two gunshot wounds, both of which ended up in her head.
The first shot entered her right shoulder, exited her shoulder, and entered her head near her ear, Sterbenz said. The gun was not against her or near her when fired as she had no gunshot residue or injuries consistent with close contact, he said. This shot would not have been immediately fatal, but it likely would have rendered her unconscious and eventually caused her to die, he said. Janice’s shoulder was in a raised position when the shot entered her, Sterbenz said.
The second shot was under her jaw and the gun was in contact with her skin, Sterbenz said. This shot was instantly fatal, he said.
There were no signs of any post-mortem injuries, Sterbenz said, a detail the defense stressed in their argument against convicting John of abuse of a corpse. The body did show that it had been dead for a period of time before it was found, including the releasing of rigor mortis and the softening of internal organs, Sterbenz said.
Prosecution closing argument
Although the defense abandoned the story about a murder-suicide pact, and the prosecution didn’t believe it existed, Becker used it to help show that John acted with premeditation, marking the November 2024 presidential election as the starting point of discussions.
Becker also noted that John chose the time of his sister’s death, the way she would die, and the weapon he would use. The rifle had bolt action so the shooter has to physically move the bolt after each shot to expel the used shell casing and inject a fresh bullet into the chamber, Gardner said.
When Janice protested, he fired anyway, Becker said. When the first shot did not kill Janice, John fired another.
“He clearly wanted her dead,” Becker said.
Defense closing argument
Lewis asked the jury to find John guilty of murder, not the more serious charge of aggravated murder.
“The text messages tell the story,” Lewis said. “Mr. Zanolli was getting kicked out of his home. As a result of him being kicked out, he snapped.”
She said the prosecution was being disingenuous by arguing that the murder-suicide pact didn’t exist, but including it in the timeline to show premeditation.
“How can you have prior calculation and design based on a false premise?” she said.
The jury deliberated for about an hour and 15 minutes before signaling that it had reached a verdict.
Janice’s state of mind
In an interview with the press following the verdict, Becker said there was no indication that Janice wanted to die.
“From what we know, speaking to the family, it didn’t come out at the trial, but I think (assistant prosecutor) Scott (Stevenson) would agree with me, Janice Zanolli was not the kind of person that was going to commit suicide,” Becker said.
“She was retired, she was enjoying her life,” he said. “This is not a person who had any medical issues, psychological issues where she wanted to die, and it’s a shame that John Zanolli took the life of his own sister. We see this needlessly happen so many times, where someone says, ‘Well, it’s a murder-suicide,” and they kill someone and sometimes they do follow through and commit the suicide. More often than not, the person that was killed initially, I would say, the great majority of the time, the person that’s murdered doesn’t want to be murdered. I can tell you, from speaking to the family, just what I know about this case, Janice Zanolli did not want to die.”
