LORAIN — A man was killed and another man was seriously injured when their Ford Focus sped from the scene of an alleged robbery Sunday night, hit a tree and then smashed into a house on Clinton Avenue, police said.

The injured man, Michael Kocak, 33, of Lorain, remained in critical condition Monday at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland.

The man who was killed was identified as Lindsay Benner, 51, county Coroner Paul Matus said, but Matus could not provide an address for him.

 Lorain police Sgt. Mark Carpentiere said the crash was the culmination of an evening during which Kocak was accused of forcing a Grafton man, Benjamin Bellisario, 32, to drive him around at knifepoint after getting into Bellisario’s truck at the Speedway gas station on state Route 58 in Amherst.

   Bellisario, a cook, was too upset to talk about the matter Monday, but his wife, Jennifer, said her husband described a harrowing experience that lasted at least an hour. She said her husband agreed as a Good Samaritan to give Kocak a ride, but he balked when Kocak wanted to make several stops.

  That’s when Kocak pulled out a knife and forced her husband to do his bidding while Kocak was smoking crack cocaine in the truck, she said.

She said at some point, a struggle ensued between her husband and Kocak over her husband’s wallet, and her husband ended up with a cut on his hand that required four stitches to close.

 She said $200 was missing from her husband’s wallet.

After the struggle, she said her husband told her that Kocak left and got into an orange Ford Focus.

Her husband followed, trying to get the license plate, she said. At one point, she said her husband followed the Focus onto a dead-end street, and the Focus rammed her husband’s truck, pushing it into a Dumpster. At 11:40 p.m., Bellisario used his cell phone to call 911, saying he was following the Ford Focus after being robbed, according to a 911 tape.

Not long afterward, Jennifer Bellisario said her husband “heard this big boom and crash,’’ and saw the car stopped near a house on Clifton Avenue.

Carpentiere said Lorain police were near the area when Bellisario called for help, and they came upon the scene just after the car crashed into the house at 3716 Clifton Ave. Police were not chasing him beforehand, Carpentiere said.

The homeowner, Ila Parks Vaughn,  65, said she was watching the Academy Awards when the Focus smashed into her porch.

“It sounded like a transformer exploding,” Vaughn said. “It knocked my power off for more than four hours, and the whole foundation along the front of the house is broken.”

A neighbor, Julie Persinger, 45, said the Focus smashed her pear tree, but missed the house where her family was sleeping.

“It shook my house,” she said of the crash.

The passenger of the Focus, Benner, died of severe head and brain injuries, Matus said. Carpentiere said the incident remains under investigation.

 Kocak has a number of past arrests, and he was sentenced to 5 to 25 years in prison in 1995 after using a pistol to rob another man he met at a gas station, according to court records. Court records also show that Kocak, in that earlier incident in which he met a man at a gas station, also forced that victim to drive to several locations.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment. If you aren't already registered, click here.
If you are registered, click here to log in.
Need help? Email Us.