Tom Strussion’s plan was to open Salsa Joe’s Smokehouse 740 in Belmont, Ohio in the spring of 2020, but a coronavirus caused a pandemic across the world.
In March 2020, state and federal authorities enacted safety restrictions, and the schools were closed and the streets were eerily empty. Strussion opened anyway in June 2020 and was an immediate hit with those who dared to dine out. The eatery became so popular, Strussion expressed he’d love to open a second location in Wheeling, and to do that he recruited a 28-year-old Oklahoma native named Andrew Griffin as his business partner.
They chose a location in the Elm Grove area in Wheeling that had been where two different Italian restaurants operated over the past 40 years, and after a couple delays, Salsa Joe’s Smokehouse 304 opened in late May 2021. A little more than three months later, Strussion and his wife, Angela, were found deceased inside their burning home on September 21st.
The double homicide shocked the valley, retired sheriff Dave Lucas refused to release the autopsy results, and then-chief deputy-now Sheriff James Zusack told local media members that “the case is getting worked on every day.” And he wasn’t lying either because Chief Detective Ryan Allar and Detective-Sergeant Jordan Blumling were spending most of their time and travel chasing their killer for more than three years.
That’s when the detectives got to go to Hawaii.
“I went to Hawaii, and it was a very nice place,” Blumling said. “It seemed very laid back, and it is very peaceful there. I enjoyed it even though we weren’t there to be tourists. We had a job to do, and we did it.
“I’m just a kid from Bellaire, so I never saw myself going to Hawaii ever,” he said. “Now that I’ve been there and done that, it’s pretty likely I’ll never go again.”
Allar and Blumling accompanied officers with the Hilo, Hawaii, Police Department to the local Home Depot on February 18, and after they went inside, the Hilo cops cuffed Griffin on aggravated murder charges while he was shopping with his younger brother, Zach. The arrest took exactly 1,247 days after the Strussions were murdered, a little longer than what it usually takes those CSI detectives on television.
“I do wish our cases could be solved as quickly as they are on TV. That’d be great and would allow us to get a lot more accomplished,” Blumling said with a grin. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and most of the time, these criminal investigations are very complex. They take time. They take patience.
“There’s an art to patience, and that’s something else I have learned from Ryan,” he said. “Some cases do solve quickly, but most of the time we’re not going to get to the finish line for a while for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes evidence takes longer to process; sometimes people won’t talk to us in the beginning, but I’d rather be patient and get it done the right way. That’s the best way to get to justice.”
The Unexpected
The common cellphone tells all tales when it comes to location data, call and text logs, browser history, and app usage, and that means law enforcement can discover where you’ve been and when you’ve been there, who you’ve been communicating with, and what you’ve been looking into by simply by getting a warrant for the device.
While Allar wouldn’t confirm whether or not cellular technology provided evidence against Griffin, he did explain how the devices can be utilized in criminal investigations.
“Technology has changed drastically over the last 15 years, especially with the use of our cellphones. Everyone has a cell phone in their pocket,” the detective explained. “Think about how much we do on our cell phones, from our locations to our social media posts to our phone calls. In a pretty short amount of time, we’ve put our lives out there on our technology, and in criminal cases, that becomes very useful to us.
“Your phone can tell us if you’re telling us the truth when we come to talk to you,” he said matter of factly. “We find out so much information from a suspect’s phone. People keep everything on their phones and, most likely, they don’t realize it. We learn about a person’s habits just by examining their phone, and we learn their secrets, too.”
Maybe – but maybe not – that’s why Allar believes local residents will find many details and exhibits of evidence as very interesting during Griffin’s capital murder trial. Belmont County Common Pleases Court Judge Chris Berhalter had set July 15th as the start date for the trial, but during his most recent pretrial hearing on June 30, the 33-year-old defendant waived his right to a speedy trial.
His attorney, Donald L. Regensburger from Columbus, advised Judge Berhalter he would need more time to prepare Griffin’s defense.
“There are a lot of details to this case that are sensitive. There will be some stuff people might be interested in once the real details come out,” the chief detective revealed. “Will people be shocked? Maybe. I don’t know. ‘Surprised’ might be more accurate.
“Two people lost their lives and the families need to know why,” he said. “That’s our job, and all we can say is that it’s complex. I think we landed where we landed because of all the evidence, and I believe we knew we were headed in the right direction once we started traveling to Oklahoma. We knew we were on the right track once we started seeing the picture that was being painted.”
The Evidence
Not only is the Strussion murder investigation Blumling’s first as a detective, but his radio appearance in May was the first time he was interviewed by a media member.
He and Allar were guests on “Novotney Now”, a daily radio news magazine that is broadcast on five frequencies on the River Network and reaches listeners in cities like East Liverpool, Steubenville, Weirton, Wheeling, Moundsville, New Martinsville, and all communities in between.
“Jordan Blumling is here, ladies and gentlemen. He is the detective-sergeant for the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office who is working his very first murder case …”
He answered questions about his duties as a patrol supervisor, about how he attended Ohio University to earn his undergraduate degree and Tiffin University for his Master’s in Criminal Behavior at the same time he was protecting and serving the residents of Belmont County, and he explained how working a real-life homicide case differs from his textbook studies.
The two, he admitted, didn’t compare at all.
“How could they?”
But then came the gut-check-toughest question of all.
“Jordan, how confident are you in your work, (Allar’s) work, and all the evidence that’s been collected and presented to Kevin Flanagan, the Belmont County prosecutor?”
“I think the evidence speaks for itself.”
His superior backed him up, too.
“I’m extremely confident in our investigation,” said Chief Detective Allar. “I’d take this case to court tomorrow.”
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