STOW, Ohio — A 38-year-old man is in custody and facing murder charges after his girlfriend was found shot dead inside her Stow home, police announced in a press release on Sunday morning, November 1. Pierre N. Wade is a suspect in the fatal shooting of Larretta Allisson, 36, the Stow Police Department said, according to WKYC. He was arrested in Cleveland by Cuyahoga County sheriff's deputies after police sent a 'be on the lookout' notice to law enforcement across the region on Friday for the vehicle Wade was driving.
Source: WKYC Studios (NBC), Cleveland — Stow PD press release, Nov. 1
Deputies arrested Wade on an unrelated warrant issued by Stow police for failure to appear, police said, and a handgun was recovered from the vehicle during the arrest. Police say he now faces murder charges in Allisson's death. The charges are allegations; Wade has not been convicted of anything in this case and is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
Found during a landlord call on Vira Road
Allisson was found on Wednesday, October 28. Stow officers were called at about 5:30 p.m. to the 4000 block of Vira Road to assist a landlord with a tenant issue, Police Captain Bryan Snavely said, in reporting by the Akron Beacon Journal. While officers were at the home, relatives of the tenant arrived, worried because they had been unable to reach her.
Source: Akron Beacon Journal reporting, via Inciding summary
When officers went inside, they found Allisson had been shot. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:52 p.m., according to the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office. Stow detectives stayed at the home through Wednesday night, joined by the medical examiner's office and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the state's investigative agency, which routinely assists local departments in homicide cases.
The search, and the arrest in Cleveland
For two days, the investigation ran without a public suspect. On Friday, October 30, Stow police issued the lookout notice for Wade's vehicle. Cuyahoga County sheriff's deputies located him in Cleveland — roughly 30 miles north of Stow — and took him into custody on the outstanding failure-to-appear warrant, with the handgun recovered from the vehicle, police said. Sunday's announcement made the connection public: the man found in Cleveland is the man police accuse in the Vira Road killing.
Family and loved ones have been remembering Allisson in the days since her death, Cleveland 19 News (WOIO) reported, as neighbours on a quiet residential street in Stow — a Summit County city between Akron and Cleveland — absorbed the news that a welfare concern at a landlord call had become a homicide investigation.
Source: WOIO Cleveland 19 News — family remembers Stow woman
Police have named a suspect and announced murder charges, but they have not released a motive, said how long Allisson had been dead before she was found, or described the evidence connecting Wade to the shooting. Those questions belong to the investigation and the court record as it develops.
What happens next
Wade is in custody, and the case now moves toward the Summit County court system, where formal proceedings on the murder charges will be scheduled; no hearing date had been publicly reported as of Sunday. Stow detectives are continuing the investigation with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Stow Police Detective Bureau at 330-689-5770.
For readers in Stow and across Summit County, the practical facts are these: the suspect police were looking for is off the street, the Vira Road home is no longer an active scene, and the next public facts will come from court filings — what Wade is formally charged with, what the affidavit alleges, and what a judge decides about his custody while the case proceeds.