(Youngstown) - A man about to go on trial for the murder of a girl and her grandparents, and for starting the fire that killed all three of them, apparently committed suicide Monday morning by jumping to his death inside the Mahoning County Courthouse.
Mahoning County authorities, and news reports, say that Robert Seman flung himself over a fourth floor balcony in the courthouse rotunda, and fell to his death on the courthouse floor some 40-feet below.
Seman was at the courthouse in Youngstown, dressed in street clothes, for a pre-trial hearing in which prosecutors and defense would decide how jurors in Portage County would be told next week why Seman's trial was moved out of Mahoning County. Seman was granted a change of venue because of extensive publicity about his case in the Youngstown area.
Seman's trial would have begun in Ravenna on Monday, April 17. He was charged with starting the house fire in March 2015 that killed 10-year-old Corinne Gump of Youngstown, and her grandparents, Bill and Judy Schmidt. The fire was set the morning that Seman was to have gone on trial for raping Corinne.
(Mugshot courtesy Youngstown Police)