Argument preceded fatal fire, witness testifies at Leon Newsome trial

When flames roared up the stairs to the second floor, burning the air he breathed, Frank McCready realized the small trash bin of water he held would not put out the blaze.

Unable to alert their third-floor roommates, McCready grabbed his former girlfriend, Lisa Cook, and escaped through their second-floor bedroom window, he said Wednesday in court, recalling the fatal 2022 fire.

Just moments earlier, they heard a "boom" or "whoosh" from the ground floor, where Leon "Nitty" Newsome, 39 of Akron, had been arguing with his girlfriend, McCready said at Newsome's second murder trial.

"I have heard it before," McCready said of the noise. "It's usually when you leave the grill top down with the gas running and push the (ignition) button."

Newsome is accused of starting a fire that killed two people, 31-year-old Casey Blanchfield and 41-year-old Thomas "TJ" Litton, who were asleep on the third floor. An autopsy found they died of smoke inhalation and thermal injury.

Newsome's first trial last October ended in a hung jury following a three-and-a-half day trial. He is represented by attorneys John Greven and Nathan Ray.

Newsome faces 10 charges. That's two counts of murder, six counts of aggravated arson and two counts of felonious assault. He initially had 16 charges. Four counts of aggravated murder and two counts of murder were dropped.

Blaze followed argument, threat

Cook described how Oct. 25, 2022, was the first day without rain in about one week, so she and Newsome's girlfriend bought coffee from a nearby convenience store.

Usually, this was a 10 to 15-minute walk, she said, but the two took their time, stopping to look at piles of junk left from recent evictions. Cook estimated they returned nearly one hour later.

Cook and McCready said Newsome was upset they were gone for so long, so he confronted Cook on the second floor.

"He came upstairs and accused Lisa that they were doing things they shouldn't have been doing," McCready testified. "He was upset. He was mad."

As the fight threatened to escalate, McCready separated Cook and Newsome before ordering him to go downstairs, she recalled.

That's when Newsome yelled, "I'm going to kill you," Cook said.

They said Newsome continued the argument with his girlfriend on the ground floor. After a few moments, the yelling stopped. Then his girlfriend ran up the stairs.

"The sofa is on fire. The sofa is on fire," McCready recalled her screaming.

"She screeched, yelled loudly," Cook said.

They said the woman filled a pitcher with water from the second-floor bathroom sink and went downstairs. When McCready tried to do the same with a trash bin, the blaze blocked the stairwell.

After yelling for Blanchfield and Litton on the third floor, Cook and McCready escaped through their bedroom window.

First responder reviews, recalls interview with Newsome

Prosecutors played two interviews between Newsome and former Akron fire investigator Gabriel Cotrufo, who was first on the scene.

In the first interview, Newsome told Cotrufo he knocked on the third-floor door for Litton. When Litton didn't answer, he went to the ground floor where he saw the fiery couch. That's when he tried to move the couch and began moving bicycles from the side door.

Assistant Prosecutor Ben Carro asked Cotrufo if he saw burns on Newsome's arms during the interview or if bicycles littered the driveway.

"I did not," said Cotrufo, now a Medina County sheriff's deputy. "I was unobstructed; I did not see any bicycles."

In the same interview, Newsome identified an individual named "JJ," who he said was the last person in the living room.

During the second interview, Newsome admitted he was on drugs that morning and described how his girlfriend and Cook left for coffee. After returning home, he said he argued with the two before sitting down on the couch.

He told Cotrufo he lit a cigarette. He agreed when Cotrufo said he touched the couch when he reached down with the cigarette in his hand.

"It didn't start anything," Newsome said in the interview. "I didn't pour anything."

Cotrufo said a lit cigarette by itself would not ignite a couch. It would need an "ignitable liquid" and an open flame. The "whoosh" noise, he said, is indicative of an accelerant's vapors catching fire, which a cigarette would not cause.

Residents describe drug house full of junk

Seven people lived in the house, but Cook and McCready said many more often stayed and slept there or visited to use drugs. They said no drugs were manufactured there.

They admitted that they were addicted to methamphetamine at the time of the fire, but testified they have now been drug-free for months.

Both McCready and Cook described the house as messy, full of junk, bags of trash, electronics, furniture and bicycles. The front and back doors were blocked by an assortment of collected objects, including boxes

"(The homeowner) was a hoarder," McCready said. "There was stuff everywhere."

The kitchen was "unusable" with items filling the sink and a dresser, hutch and boxes blocking off the room, Cook testified.

Fire investigators determined the fire began on a couch on the ground floor in a room Newsome and his girlfriend slept in. Cook said the room was clutteredlike the rest of the house, but it was occasionally clean.

No accelerant detected in fire

Investigators accused Newsome of pouring Heet fuel on the couch and setting it on fire, according to court documents.

A fire investigator testified that a canine trained in detecting accelerants found no gasoline-based or other hydrocarbon-type accelerants. He said the dog was not trained to detect other accelerants like alcohol-based types.

Bryce Buyakie covers courts and public safety for the Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at bbuyakie@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @bryce_buyakie

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Witness testifies Leon Newsome started deadly housefire after argument