A 54-year-old Canton woman has been sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for kidnapping Jerry Morris, beating him to death, and dumping his body across county lines in Akron. Yolanda Lowery pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping, tampering with evidence, and gross abuse of a corpse, closing out her portion of a case that began with a body found in a different city than where the killing occurred.
According to the seed report from Cleveland 19 News, Morris, also 54 and a Canton resident, was killed on or about July 30, 2025, before his body was found in Akron on August 1, 2025. Canton and Akron police jointly determined that the killing took place in Canton even though the body turned up in Summit County, a discrepancy that forced the two municipal departments to collaborate on the investigation, as previously reported by WKYC.
Yolanda's mother, 70-year-old Dorothy Lowery, has pleaded not guilty to the same core allegations — aggravated murder, murder, kidnapping, felonious assault, tampering with evidence, and gross abuse of a corpse. Her case has not moved toward trial. Instead, the station's report notes she was ordered in May to be transported to Heartland Behavioral Health and evaluated for restoration to competency, and no next court date has been scheduled for her.
A Nearly Three-Month Manhunt Before Arrests
Investigators did not make arrests quickly. During the roughly three months between the discovery of Morris's body and the eventual arrests, Canton police solicited public tips through Tip411 and Stark County Crime Stoppers, per the same WKYC account. That effort culminated on October 21, 2025, when members of the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force of the U.S. Marshals Service assisted Canton police in taking Yolanda and Dorothy Lowery into custody at their Canton home, with bond later set at $1 million each.
A Stark County grand jury formally indicted both women on six felony counts in December, according to WKYC's coverage of the indictment. At that stage, mother and daughter faced identical charges. It was only after the indictment that their paths diverged, with Yolanda entering her guilty plea while Dorothy maintained her not-guilty stance across all counts.
What the Autopsy and Complaints Alleged
Hoodline's earlier coverage of the arraignment detailed the specific allegations laid out in Canton police complaints: that Yolanda Lowery beat Morris repeatedly while Dorothy Lowery held him in a chokehold. Autopsy findings cited at the time attributed his death to multiple blunt-force injuries. Those complaints formed the factual basis prosecutors ultimately used to secure Yolanda's guilty plea on the murder, kidnapping, tampering, and corpse-abuse counts.
Sentencing Under Ohio Law, and What Comes Next for Dorothy
Yolanda Lowery's 15-years-to-life sentence follows directly from Ohio Revised Code Section 2929.02, which mandates an indefinite term of at least 15 years for a murder conviction or guilty plea before parole can even be considered, according to the statute published by the state of Ohio. That means she will not have a chance at release until she has served the full 15 years, regardless of any future good behavior.
Dorothy Lowery's situation is governed by a different statute. Ohio Revised Code Section 2945.38 allows courts to order a defendant transported for competency restoration treatment at a state psychiatric facility, such as Heartland Behavioral Health, for up to a year, so that officials can determine whether she is capable of understanding the court proceedings against her and assisting in her own defense. That evaluation period is why her criminal case remains frozen while her daughter's has already concluded.
A Case Set Against a Rising Homicide Count
The killing landed in a city already seeing a troubling shift in violent crime. Homicides in the city of Canton more than doubled in 2025 compared to the year before, even though total homicides across all of Stark County rose by just one case, according to reporting from The Canton Repository. That disparity points to a concentration of violence within the city itself rather than a countywide surge, a pattern that has drawn local scrutiny as officials tally the toll from last year.
For now, Yolanda Lowery's sentence closes one chapter of a case that spanned two counties and multiple law enforcement agencies. Whether Dorothy Lowery will ultimately face trial depends on the outcome of her competency evaluation, a process that could keep her case in limbo for months to come.
