A 32-year-old Oklahoma man will be extradited from the Big Island to Ohio to face two counts of aggravated murder for the shooting death of a married couple who were reportedly his business partners.
Hilo Circuit Judge Henry Nakamoto’s order gives Belmont County, Ohio, authorities 30 days to take custody of Andrew Isaac Griffin and return him to face charges he killed Thomas Strussion, 51, and Angela Strussion, 49.
Their bodies were found, along with those of their three dogs, in the early morning of Sept. 21, 2021, in their Belmont, Ohio, home — which had been set ablaze after they were slain.
Griffin didn’t speak during the Friday hearing, which focused on whether he was the man sought by the Ohio authorities for the double homicide.
Deputy Prosecutor Rebecca Lester called two witnesses, Hawaii Police Department Detective Kimo Keliipaakaua and Suzanne Kong, a civilian fingerprint technician for HPD.
Keliipaakaua testified that Belmont County sheriff’s detectives traced Griffin to the Big Island using flight information.
“They confirmed that Andrew Griffin was on a flight to Hawaii, and that the flight was on Jan. 25, 2025,” Keliipaakaua replied to a question by Lester, and added that Griffin was staying with a brother in Mountain View.
Keliipaakaua also testified the Ohio detectives “had a ping” on Griffin’s cellphone, and he and other HPD detectives apprehended Griffin on Feb. 18 at the Hilo Home Depot store.
“I identified who I was and why he was being arrested,” the detective said. “… I asked him his birthday and the last four of his (Social Security number) to confirm that it was him, as well.”
“And Mr. Griffin provided you that personal information?” Lester inquired.
“Yes,” Keliipaakaua replied.
Under questioning by Deputy Public Defender Megan Fellows, Keliipaakaua replied that Griffin appears “similar” to the picture on his Oklahoma driver’s license, which was taken several years ago and in which Griffin — who now sports a full beard — was clean shaven.
Nakamoto allowed Kong, who has been in her current position since 1993, to testify as a fingerprint expert over Fellows’ objection. The defense counsel’s objections were based upon Kong not having a certification in fingerprint or palm print comparison, not belonging to a fingerprint professional association, and having not received any formal training updates or seminars since 2007.
Kong said she previously testified as an expert witness in fingerprint comparison about 100 times, and her expert status had never been denied in court.
Asked by Fellows why she hasn’t obtained more recent training, Kong pointed to lack of funding and the novel coronavirus pandemic.
In closing, Lester argued that Griffin had confirmed the personal information on his Oklahoma driver’s license to Keliipaakaua. She told the judge that fact, plus “30 points of comparison” in fingerprint analysis by Kong, made it “unequivocally clear that the same person that is wanted in Ohio … is the same individual that appears before you today, Your Honor.”
Fellows argued the prosecution didn’t establish that her client was the Andrew Griffin sought in the murder case. She said photos and fingerprints used by Ohio authorities in their extradition warrant were from Oklahoma, and that nothing provided the court “had any identifying information in Ohio for us to compare to.”
“Even if they’ve established that the Andrew Griffin who is here today is the same Andrew Griffin who has a driver’s license in Oklahoma, that is not to say that the Andrew Griffin who is from Oklahoma is the same Andrew Griffin that is wanted in Ohio,” Fellows told the judge.
“The photos we have are from Oklahoma in a different time period; the Social Security number we have is from Oklahoma from a different time period, so we would ask the court not to grant his extradition.”
Nakamoto ruled the testimony of Keliipaakaua and Kong established “that the person in this courtroom, Andrew Griffin, is the person who’s a fugitive from the state of Ohio,” and granted the extradition.
The judge also ordered Griffin remain in custody without bail at Hawaii Community Correctional Center pending extradition.
Two Belmont County sheriff’s deputies who were in the courtroom for Griffin’s initial appearance on Feb. 21, Chief Detective Ryan Allar and Detective Jordan Blumling, weren’t present Friday.
A motive for the murders hasn’t been publicly identified, but Griffin was reportedly a business partner of the slain couple in an eatery they owned, the Elm Grove location of Salsa Joe’s Tex-Mex Smokehouse restaurant across the Ohio River from Belmont County in Wheeling, W.Va.
According to reports in the Wheeling News-Register, less than a week after the Strussions were murdered, 31-year-old Anthony Michael Dibacco and 25-year-old Miana Maylyn Smith, both of Bellaire, Ohio, were arrested and charged with extortion after homicide detectives discovered a plot to extort Thomas Strussion.
According to the West Virginia newspaper, the pair had threatened to reveal that Strussion had an affair with Smith, and Strussion paid them $25,000 to conceal that information.
Both eventually pleaded guilty, and each was sentenced to three years in prison, but both were reportedly eliminated as suspects in the murders.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.
