Andrew Griffin was shopping with his younger sibling inside a home improvement store at the time he was arrested one day and one year ago in Hilo, Hawaii, and Zach Griffin immediately wanted the officers to know he wasn’t hiding his big brother from the law.
The 33-year-old Griffin, an investor in the Strussions’ Salsa Joe’s business, was apprehended inside the Home Depot in Hilo, Hawaii, two days after detectives Chief Ryan Allar and Sgt. Jordan Blumling arrived to the island on Valentine’s Day 2025. They teamed up with law enforcement from the Hilo Police Department, and it was the local officers from the “Crescent City” who placed the cuffs on the alleged murderer.
“Because the local authorities were involved, we separated into teams and me and Jordan were on the car he and his brother had driven to the Home Depot. The local authorities were the one who arrested and cuffed him inside the store,” Allar recalled. “Once they said they had eyes on him in the store, we went inside and arrived just in time to witness them taking Griffin into custody. When he saw me, he knew the bill came due in Belmont County.
“His brother (Zach) really wanted to let us know that he wasn’t trying to hide him,” he said. “He told us he had no idea what was happening and that he wasn’t part of any criminal conspiracy to hide him. He was very cooperative with us.”
The arrest followed more than three-and-a-half years of investigation into a shocking and surprising double murder that took place on Sept. 21, 2021, at 67140 Trails End Drive in Belmont. Ohio. A neighbor had reported smoke coming from an upstairs window of the three-bedroom, four-bathroom dwelling, and firefighters discovered Thomas and Angela Strussion deceased.
But not because of the blaze. Retired Sheriff Dave Lucas announced the next day the incident was indeed a double homicide, and that’s where he stopped and where he stayed when it came to providing any additional information.
Lucas refused to release the autopsy reports or any other details, and it wasn’t until Belmont County Prosecutor Kevin Flanagan announced the 14 indictments issued by the spring 2025 session of the county’s Grand Jury that the public officially learned about the use of a firearm was involved.
It took about a month for Griffin to be extradited from the Hawaiian city to the Belmont County Jail, and that’s where he has remained since. Monthly “housekeeping” hearing have been scheduled and held by Common Pleas Court Judge Chris Berhalter, and the original trial date of March 2 was pushed back to October 19th in late January.
“The Sheriff’s Office worked that case every single day for more than four years, so, yeah, it’s frustrating that we’re still awaiting the trial,” Allar said. “We were ready to try this case the day we arrested him a year ago, so it is frustrating that we’re still waiting for the trial to begin because it’s so important to us to give closure to the family.
“Angela’s father even traveled here for the most recent hearing instead of waiting for us to call him and let him know what’s happening with everything. He just wants to see justice for his daughter,” he said. “The families have to live with this every day, and yes, with a case this big, there are going to be delays, but just because we know that doesn’t make it any easier for anyone.”
How did Allar and Blumling know where to find Griffin once Prosecutor Flanagan formally charged him last February with two counts of aggravated murder?
“Once we were pretty confident he was our guy, we tracked him for a while, but I can’t divulge how that was accomplished,” Allar explained. “When it came to him staying with his brother in Hawaii, we thought he was just visiting and would be going back to Oklahoma so we had a plan to arrest him there so we could save the travel expense. But then we got some intelligence that indicated that he had no immediate plans to return to the continental U.S., so that’s when we had to make plans to go out to Hawaii.
“It wasn’t the first time he had traveled away from his hometown in Oklahoma, and at one point, he left the country through Mexico. He was on the run because, at the time, he was facing charges in Oklahoma that involved his marriage ending,” he said. “We did think about going down to Costa Rica, but then he came back on his own and was arrested in Houston for the charges in Oklahoma.”
Griffin is expected to appear in court again for yet another pretrial hearing on February 27 at 1:30 p.m. in St. Clairsville.
