84-year old Ruth Stanton couldn't ''just drive away''

3:42pm Friday, October 31, 2003

Willoughby News-Herald
10/28/2003

Jury selection under way for man accused of stabbing 84-year-old neighbor

Jury selection began Monday in the case of a Mayfield Heights man accused of
stabbing his elderly female neighbor to death.

Yuriy Khanin, 21, a former resident of the Gates Mills Towers apartment complex, killed 84-year-old Ruth Stanton in April 2002 after a robbery gone bad, police said.
Khanin is charged with aggravated murder and aggravated robbery. If convicted of murder, he is eligible for the death penalty since he committed the murder during a robbery attempt, according to police.

Mayfield Heights Detective Sgt. Chris Sonnhalter said the trial is expected
to last about four weeks, including up to one week to pick a jury.

Stanton was stabbed nine times in the neck and back, then stuffed in the trunk of her white Ford Contour in the Mayfield Road complex's parking garage, according to reports.

Khanin was an unregistered tenant who lived on the same floor as Stanton,
but police said they found no evidence that the two knew each other.

Khanin's attorney, Chief Cuyahoga County Public Defender Robert Tobik, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Stanton, who lived alone, was reported missing by a niece who became concerned about the 5-foot, 100-pound woman's welfare.

Stanton's death was the second homicide at the complex in a 10-month period.

On June 10, 2001, the body of 26-year-old Nancy Pimentel was found stuffed in a trash can on the balcony of the 14th-floor apartment she shared with 37-year-old boyfriend Gerald Lee Thompson.

Thompson, who dismembered Pimentel's body and then tried to dispose of it in
a garbage can full of acid, was sentenced to life in prison.

The complex has since been renamed The Grandview.

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