YOUNGSTOWN — Nicholas A. Cunningham, 31, of Wilcox Street in Alliance, who was arraigned Monday in the murder of Gena M. Wade, 44, of Beloit, was ordered to stay away from Wade through a civil stalking protection order issued March 31.

Judge Anthony D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court approved the order after Wade, of Courtney Road in Smith Township, north of Beloit, complained of Cunningham texting messages threatening to hurt Wade and her mother.

Cunningham is charged in Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown with aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and two counts of violating a protection order. The date of all of the offenses is Oct. 26, according to court documents.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Wade was found dead in her home Oct. 26 after police were called there for an unknown medical call.

According to the Smith Township Police Department Facebook page, the department and members of the Mahoning County Homicide Task Force investigated Wade’s death. Cunningham was arrested Nov. 10.

Bond of $500,000 was set for Cunningham at his arraignment Monday in the Austintown Court. He remains in the Mahoning County jail.

PROTECTION ORDER

In her application for the protection order, Wade said Cunningham was “targeting my 12-year-old niece, and he is a convicted sex offender.”

The filing states Cunningham threatens her and her mother “almost every day” on his Facebook page.

She requested the restraining order March 6, and the judge approved it March 31, the day of a hearing. Cunningham could have attended to give his side of the story, but he did not appear.

The order states Cunningham was not to “abuse, harm, attempt to harm, threaten, follow, stalk, harass, force sexual relations upon or commit sexually oriented offenses against the protected persons named in this order.”

The names of the protected people are removed from the document under Ohio’s Marsy’s Law, which protects victims of crime. But it indicates the order was for Cunningham to stay away from Wade, her children and “other.”

Cunningham was ordered to stay away from the protected persons and not have any contact with them, including electronic communications. He also was ordered to possess no deadly weapons throughout the five years of the order. He was ordered to turn over any deadly weapons he owned by March 27.

Cunningham was convicted in November 2015 of sexual battery, sexual motivation, in Stark County Common Pleas Court. He was convicted at the same time of gross sexual imposition, victim under 13, sexual motivation.

According to Stark County Common Pleas Court records, Cunningham was indicted on charges of rape and gross sexual imposition in March 2015. In October 2015, he pleaded no contest to sexual battery and gross sexual imposition and was sentenced to three years in prison in November 2015.

According to an appeals court document, Cunningham’s convictions were for incidents from 2010 between Cunningham and a victim less than 13 years of age.

COMPETENCY

Cunningham appealed one aspect of his case, a ruling that he was competent to stand trial.

According to documents, Cunningham was evaluated in 2015, and Dr. Lynn Luna found Cunningham competent. Later, Dr. Robert Devies carried out an evaluation and found Cunningham not to be competent. The Stark County Common Pleas Court judge later agreed with Luna and found Cunningham competent. The Fifth District Court of Appeals ended the appeal.

The appeals court ruling stated Devies found Cunningham to have an IQ of 53, saying the “mean IQ for people found not to be competent is 57 or 58” but he evaluated other factors, including Cunningham’s history of Asberger’s Syndrome and a drug addiction that requires Suboxone therapy. Devies concluded Cunningham could not be restored to competency within a year.

He said some reasons were because of Cunningham’s “lifelong cognitive challenges and his development disorder.” He said Cunningham’s autism disorder “affected his memory, which could impact his ability to be of assistance to his trial counsel.”

Jones diagnosed Cunningham with “intellectual disability” and agreed his IQ could be 53, but classified Cunningham’s intellectual disability to be “mild” and his opiate use disorder to be “severe.”

But when she gave Cunningham a competency assessment for standing trial for defendants with mental retardation, she found he scored 94 percent, which is “much higher than the average mean score for defendants with mental retardation that were found competent to stand trial,” she said.

erunyan@vindy.com