They are everywhere.
Cellular towers are mounted on mountaintops, in the middle of dairy farms, and on top of skyscrapers, water tanks, and church steeples from the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean to the coast of the Pacific, and the hardware connects data providers to their customers as they travel from one location to another.
In fact, first responder agencies often utilize the cell tower technology for the “Ping” process to locate individuals reportedly missing from family and friends. That’s why it can be stated that cellular towers “follow” cell phone users, and why Belmont County Prosecutor Kevin Flanagan will present cell tower data and lead a tour of four cell towers during the October trial against double murder defendant Andrew Griffin.
Griffin is accused of murdering husband and wife Thomas and Angela Strussion in their home in Belmont, Ohio, on September 21, 2021. Griffin had become business partners with the Strussions’ Salsa Joe’s Smokehouse restaurant business in October 2020, and helped operate the locations in Belmont County and in the Elm Grove area of Wheeling until a few weeks before the homicides.
Thomas Strussion was 52 years old and his wife was 48 at the time of the murders, and a 14-count indictment against the Oklahoma native was returned by the February 2025 Belmont County Grand Jury. Griffin was arrested in Hawaii in mid-February, and he was extradited to East Ohio on March 17th last year.
“What we have when we are discussing cell towers is we’re discussing location,” said Flanagan, who was elected to become Belmont County’s next Common Pleas Court Judge. “And so, we had previously filed a motion to allow the jurors to be able to visit cell tower locations because we believe those locations are going to play an important part in our upcoming trial. The motion was approved by (Common Pleas Court) Judge Chris Berhalter, and that trial is to begin on October 19th.
“In doing so – visiting the cell towers – they get to see the locations much better than if they were just looking on essentially a map and seeing where these locations were,” he explained. “Judge Berhalter has ruled that the four locations are going to play a very important part in our trial.”
The Strussions’ residence was located at 67140 Trails End Drive in a private community resting just south of U.S. Route 40, and Flanagan’s tour of cell towers will take place near the neighborhood where the tragedy took place.
“There will be other tower locations that we disclose during the course of the trial, but the four that are relevant to our view with the jury that Judge Berhalter has already ruled upon, those are in Belmont County,” Flanagan said. “Those towers actually are around the residence where the murders took place on that September day.
“We’ve already had Detective (Jordan) Blumling deemed an expert in a pre-trial hearing, and that means he will be able to testify regarding the area, if you will, that a cellular device was essentially hitting off of the tower,” the prosecutor explained. “That’s where we are going to be able to hone in on the location. It is obviously not a precise science and it just gives you a general location, but it is our claim that the location is important in the prosecution of this case.”
According to the prosecutor, the data provided by cellular towers is far more detailed today than what was provided at the time when homicides took place nearly five years ago.
“Cellular towers are much more specific now than they were in 2021, and in this case, we’re dealing with 2021 technology because that’s when these crimes were committed,” Flanagan said. “And there is a big difference because location services are much more specific than they were five years ago, but that’s also why we’re using information from four different cell towers.
“Cell towers aren’t that far apart, so usually when you drive down the road, you are hitting off of one, and then another as your travel continues. If you’re running an app like Google Maps, you’re going to hit off of a tower and then you go down the road a little bit further and hit off another one. And so on,” he reported. “That gives you a nice little roadmap if you’re an investigator trying to figure some things out.”
Hurry Up and Wait
The request for a continuance was filed by Griffin’s defense attorney back in early January, and by the end of the same month, Judge Berhalter granted the motion and set the new date in mid-October.
In other words, Flanagan and his staff, lead investigators Ryan Allar and Jordan Blumling, and the victims’ families now must wait until the fall for the proceedings to finally begin. Flanagan has estimated the trial could take as long as two weeks.
“We were prepared for the trial at the time the continuance was granted. We were not prepared for the continuance,” Flanagan said. “Even before Christmas, we were in ‘tunnel vision’ mode because we were getting so close to the original date in March. We were focused on this trial and this trial only, and then the defense had asked for a continuance. It was upsetting. It was upsetting for our victim’s family members.
“And it was upsetting for us. This is not a trial that you can just pivot and continue for a couple of weeks. We are talking about a whole host of witnesses – maybe above 50. We are talking about location differences, meaning that some of our people are scattered throughout the United States, and we’ll need to bring them back in. So, it is a mammoth project,” he detailed. “Nonetheless, we understand why the defense asked for the continuance. We understand the need, but it was frustrating for sure.”
Flanagan, though, insisted his team will remain ready to prosecute.
“We understand why it happened because, while we’ve had some time to build a case, the defense may need more time. That does happen,” Flangan said. “So, it would not have been very surprising to us if they filed for a continuance maybe four months before the trial.
“It was a little more of a surprise when it happened just under six weeks before the original trial start date,” he said. “But we were ready then, we’re ready right now, and we’ll be ready to go in October.”
