John Lorkowski stood crying, covered in blood. He held a large knife, bloodied in his hand.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Coreatha Hutch recalled Lorkowski saying before she took the knife from him.
Moments earlier on Nov. 6, 2024, her 32-year-old adopted daughter, Sharee Hutch, screamed out from a lower room in their shared house in Stow. When Coreatha descended the stairs and saw Sharee unresponsive on the ground, she immediately ran upstairs, grabbed her phone and called 911.
“I don’t think she’s breathing. He had a mental problem. He started some new medication, and I don’t know what happened,” she told a dispatcher. “Sharee baby girl, come on please.”
Now, about two years later, Lorkowski is charged with murdering Sharee. He appeared on July 8 for the start of his bench trial before Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Joy Malek Oldfield, who will decide a verdict instead of a jury. Lorkowski is charged with one count of murder, but Oldfield could find him guilty of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.
While both parties agree that Lorkowski fatally stabbed Sharee, at the heart of the trial is why he did it.
Defense, prosecutors spar over what fueled Sharee Hutch’s murder
Sharee and Coreatha had lived with Lorkowski for years before the fatal incident in 2024. They also shared the house with Lorkowski’s wife, Coreatha’s sister, who died in 2022.
That loss devastated the household, assistant Summit County prosecutor Rimma Avanesyan said in her opening statement. Lorkowski became increasingly depressed and anxious, his attorney Donald Malarcik said.
By 2023, Lorkowski and Sharee had started a romantic and physical relationship that they kept secret, Avanesyan said. Over time, Sharee became more independent and grew away from him.
Malarcik said, at the same time, Lorkowski’s mental health became increasingly unmanageable despite repeated mental health treatments and new medications. In his diary, Lorkowski wrote how he relied on Sharee during his mental struggles.
“She is not able to handle his emotions, depression and anxiety,” Malarcik said. “Sharee is backing away.”
By November 2024, Lorkowski had lost his job and was struggling with his physical health. That year, his mental health medication changed four times, which combined with his mental state, led to the fatal stabbing, Malarcik said. But Avanesyan disagreed, arguing that Lorkowski acted out of anger, citing his diary that read, “If I can’t have her, no one can.”
“This was intimate partner violence in its most jealous and vengeful form,” she said.
To argue his points, Malarcik is aiming to put two expert witnesses on the stand to testify on Lorkowski’s prescribed medications, medical diagnoses and mental state when the fatal stabbing occurred. Prosecutors argued in briefs and a pretrial hearing that this testimony is inadmissible because it is unrelated to an insanity defense.
What led to Sharee Hutch’s death?
On Nov. 6, 2024, Lorkowski and Sharee were playing video games in the lower room of their house when Lorkowski asked Sharee twice if she enjoyed hanging around him. In response, she told him to leave her alone.
“That’s when his world collapses. He became full of rage,” Malarcik said, noting Lorkowski didn’t know what happened next.
Lorkowski then left the room for his knife collection, grabbed the large trench knife and repeatedly stabbed Sharee, Avanesyan said.
“Once he comes to, he is profoundly guilty,” Malarcik said.
Malarcik and Avanesyan said Lorkowski admitted to stabbing Sharee, telling police and medical personnel. However, he didn’t immediately tell them about his relationship with Sharee.
As the two attorneys and Coreatha spoke, Lorkowski rocked in his chair and looked down. When the discussion turned toward Sharee’s death and his actions on Nov. 6, 2024, his shoulders began to heave. His head nodded as he silently cried into his hands.
Bryce Buyakie is an Akron-based reporter who covers the courts and public safety for the Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at bbuyakie@gannett.com or on X @bryce_buyakie.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Judge to decide whether Stow man murdered niece in 2024 stabbing
Reporting by Bryce Buyakie, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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By Bryce Buyakie, Akron Beacon Journal | USA TODAY Network
