CHICAGO — Justin Masterson pitched six effective innings, Kosuke Fukudome had a tiebreaking RBI triple and the Cleveland Indians inched closer to the top of the AL Central with a 4-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night.

Cleveland’s Matt LaPorta, right, celebrates with Jack Hannahan after hitting a two-run home run during the fourth inning against the Chicago White Sox on Thursday. (AP photo.)

Matt LaPorta hit a two-run homer for Cleveland, which pulled within 1 1⁄2 games of idle Detroit for the division lead. The Tribe opens a three-game series at Detroit on Friday.

Paul Konerko homered for the White Sox, which lost starter Phil Humber on a scary play in the second inning. Konerko, Adam Dunn and Omar Vizquel each had two hits, and Tyler Flowers singled in a run.

Masterson (10-7) allowed two runs and seven hits, struck out two and walked three. The 6-foot-6 right-hander improved to 2-2 with a 1.61 ERA in four starts against the White Sox this season.

Rafael Perez and Joe Smith combined to finish the seventh, Vinnie Pestano got out of a jam in the eighth and Chris Perez finished for his 27th save in 30 chances.

Humber was struck in the face by Fukudome’s comebacker with one out in the second inning. He fell to the ground as the ball bounded back to catcher Flowers.

Humber stood up immediately after the play ended and appeared to be alert as the club’s medical staff checked on him, but was removed after a short delay.

The White Sox announced Humber was struck above the right eye and was removed as a precautionary measure. He was alert and responsive and will evaluated again on Friday.

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The Indians won the last two games of their three-game series against the White Sox after losing seven of their first eight games against Chicago this season.

Fukudome played a key role in Cleveland’s decisive rally in the sixth. After Shin-Soo Choo led off with an infield single, Fukudome tripled into the right-field corner against Will Ohman (0-3) to give the Indians a 3-2 lead.

Fukudome, acquired in a July trade with the crosstown Cubs, came home later in the inning when Asdrubal Cabrera drew a two-out walk against Jason Frasor on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded.

The White Sox loaded the bases with two out in the eighth, but Pestano struck out Gordon Beckham to end the inning. Beckham is 3 for 24 over his last six games, dropping his average to .238.

Konerko went deep in the third to give Chicago a 1-0 lead. Konerko’s 28th homer was just the sixth off Masterson in 173 innings this season.

LaPorta responded with a two-run drive on an 0-2 pitch from rookie Zach Stewart with two out in the fourth.

Flowers’ RBI single in the fourth tied it at 2. He also had three walks and has reached base 11 times in over his last four starts in place of injured catcher A.J. Pierzynski.

Dunn singled twice for his first two-hit game since July 22. Dunn is hitting .333 in 36 at-bats against the Indians this season. He’s hitting .149 against everybody else.

Notes

• Indians rookie Jason Kipnis was expected to return to the lineup after missing three games with right side soreness, but was a late scratch because of tightness in his right hamstring. He was replaced at second base by Jason Donald.
• Josh Tomlin will start Friday against Detroit’s Max Scherzer. Tomlin has gone at least five innings in each of his first 36 career starts, the only big league pitcher to do that since 1919.
• The White Sox next play a three-game weekend series against AL West-leading Texas. Matt Harrison will face Chicago’s Jake Peavy in the opener.
• Konerko’s home run was the 393rd of his career, tying Jim Edmonds for 52nd place.
• OF Austin Kearns officially cleared waivers and was released outright by the Indians.

ELYRIA — Holly Dembie was trying to escape from her knife-wielding husband when she plunged from a second-story bathroom window at her Cowley Road home in Grafton Township on Aug. 11, Lorain County Sheriff’s Sgt. Donald Barker testified Thursday.

The murder and domestic violence charges against William Dembie Jr. of Grafton Township, shown here in court on Thursday, have been forwarded to a county grand jury. (CT photo by Bruce Bishop.)

Already wounded from William Dembie Jr.’s combat knife, she doesn’t appear to have tried to flee after she landed in the backyard, Barker said during a hearing before Elyria Municipal Court Judge Lisa Locke Graves, who forwarded the murder and domestic violence charges that Dembie faces to a county grand jury.

After the fall, William Dembie, 42, went downstairs and stabbed his 33-year-old wife again, killing her, Barker testified.

When deputies arrived, they found Holly Dembie’s nude body where she had fallen and the knife nearby. She had knife wounds on her torso and neck, and the investigation has shown that she bled to death from the wounds to her throat area, Barker said.

William Dembie, who has since resigned from his job as a corrections officer at the Lorain County Jail, had called the Sheriff’s Office and told dispatcher Joy Sanchez that he had killed his wife, telling Sanchez he “just couldn’t deal with her (expletive) anymore.”

Barker said Dembie told him during an interview about two hours after the 1:30 a.m. call that he had waited for his wife to come home from a night out with friends to talk to her. He thought she would be more receptive to what he had to say after she had been drinking, Barker said.

The couple was upstairs in Holly Dembie’s room, Barker said William Dembie told him, when the conversation escalated into violence.

“She pushed him, he recoiled and punched her in the face,” Barker testified Dembie told him.

J. Anthony Rich, William Dembie’s defense attorney, argued Thursday that Holly Dembie was physically abusive toward her husband, whom he called a “classic battered male.”

After the punch, William Dembie said the couple went downstairs to clean up the wound, according to Barker. William Dembie told him that Holly Dembie then went back to her bedroom and he went to his room to get the knife, which he hoped would calm her down.

Barker testified that William Dembie said he then returned to his wife’s room to finish their conversation. When she refused to listen, he began stabbing her, Barker said Dembie told him.

Barker said it was unclear whether the stabbing began in the bedroom or the connected bathroom, but at some point a wounded Holly Dembie tried to climb out the chest-level bathroom window. He said William Dembie told him that he grabbed for her, and her pants — the only clothing she had on at the time — ripped off and she fell. Barker said it was unclear exactly when Holly Dembie’s shirt, which was found inside the house, came off.

“She fell out the window, and he went downstairs to finish her off,” Elyria City Prosecutor Scott Strait said later in the hearing as he argued against Rich’s request to reduce the $5 million bond on which William Dembie is being held at the Erie County Jail.

Dembie, wearing an orange prisoner uniform, kept his head bowed for much of the hearing, but he did talk with Rich several times. Rich at one point asked Barker to speak louder because Dembie is hearing-impaired and couldn’t hear what the deputy was saying.

Rich insisted that his client shouldn’t be facing a murder charge. He said it wasn’t disputed that that William Dembie killed his wife, but he argued that Dembie should have been charged with voluntary manslaughter because the killing took place when his client was in a sudden fit of passion or rage.

Although he didn’t elaborate, Rich said he has evidence that William Dembie endured years of physical and psychological abuse from his wife, who worked with special-needs children at Midview Schools.

William Dembie’s mother, Doris Dembie, and his sister, Sandra Dembie, echoed those comments after the hearing.

While they described William Dembie as a loving father and “kind-hearted” man, they said that Holly Dembie had a dark side.

After the hearing, Holly Dembie’s family scoffed at the allegations that she was abusive and insisted William Dembie was a physically violent man who neglected his family. Holly Dembie, they said, was the furthest thing from an abuser.

“Holly was sunshine,” her stepfather, Michael Foldes, said.

Her mother, Cheryl Foldes, said she had no doubt that Holly Dembie was prepared to jump from the window to escape her husband, whom she had planned to divorce.

“She jumped out the window to get the hell away from him,” Cheryl Foldes said.

The Foldeses also said they believe William Dembie came to their house, which is two doors down from the Dembie home, after killing his wife. The family wasn’t there at the time — Michael Foldes was at work and Cheryl Foldes had taken the Dembies’ 4-year-old son and other family members to a drive-in movie — but they said that when they arrived, the home’s lights were turned on all over the house, and only one light was on when they left.

Barker said deputies are still investigating what Dembie did after the killing.

When Dembie called in to report that his wife was dead, he said he was waiting in the kitchen for deputies and was unarmed. When deputies arrived, Barker has said, Dembie wasn’t in the house, but came forward when they called out for him.

He was wearing shorts and a shirt and was covered in blood, Barker said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

SHEFFIELD TWP. — The Lorain County Board of Elections voted Thursday to forward its investigation into whether Lorain County Community Action Agency Director Robert Gilchrist has been voting in the wrong place for the past four elections to county prosecutors and the Ohio secretary of state’s Office.

Gilchrist

Jennifer Brunner, Gilchrist’s attorney, said she was surprised to learn anything had been done with the investigation. She said the elections board has never discussed the results of its probe with her and neither she nor Gilchrist knew the issue would be on the board’s agenda Thursday.

“We believe the matter should be dropped,” Brunner said.

Gilchrist’s voting record in the November 2009, May 2010, November 2010 and May 2011 elections has been called into question by Lorain resident Denise Caruloff.

She points to the fact that Gilchrist bought a house on Fields Way in the city’s 8th Ward in August or September 2009 but despite moving there — he took possession in December 2009 — he continued to vote in the city’s 2nd Ward for four more elections.

Gilchrist, who declined to comment Thursday, has previously said he voted where his driver’s license said he lived. He has also said he never did anything intentionally wrong and called the complaint ridiculous.

But Gilchrist could potentially face felony criminal charges, depending on the results of the review being conducted by prosecutors and state elections officials.

Brunner, who served as secretary of state for four years, said it’s exceedingly rare for investigations into where someone voted to be sent to prosecutors.

She said it appears that Gilchrist has been singled out for punishment.

Some Gilchrist supporters have suggested that the complaint against Gilchrist, who is black, is racially motivated, an accusation Caruloff has said isn’t true. She points to another complaint she filed challenging the residency of Lorain school board member Paul Biber, who is white, as proof she isn’t targeting anyone because of their race. The elections board dismissed her complaint against Biber.

Brunner also said she couldn’t comment on the results of the elections board investigation because she hasn’t seen the evidence gathered.

According to the evidence gathered by elections board Director Paul Adams and Deputy Director Jim Kramer, Gilchrist first registered to vote in Lorain County in September 2008.

Leases from Jon Veard’s United Property Management Co. show that Gilchrist rented a Broadway apartment from May 31, 2008, to March 9, 2009. Between March 9, 2009, and Aug. 31, 2009, he moved to a larger apartment in the same building.

The leases show that Gilchrist then moved to an Oak Point Road facility also operated by Veard’s company in August 2009 and lived there until December 2009, when he took possession of his new home on Fields Way.

Veard said Thursday that a February eviction notice against Gilchrist for failing to pay rent that was included in the elections board’s file was issued in error because of a computer problem. He said Gilchrist was a model tenant.

The elections board also uncovered evidence that Gilchrist had signed petitions for six Democratic candidates — including his then-boss, Lorain Mayor Tony Krasienko — to get them placed on the May primary ballot. On the petitions he listed his voting address as the Fields Way home, although when he signed the petitions he was still registered to vote at the Broadway apartment.

The investigation also found instances of Gilchrist, who until last month was Lorain’s service director, contributing money to Krasienko’s campaigns in 2010 and 2011 and listing the Fields Way address as his residence for voting purposes.

Gilchrist changed his voter registration to the Fields Way home on Aug. 1, the same day the elections board was scheduled to conduct a hearing into where he should vote in the upcoming election. That hearing was canceled after Gilchrist changed his voter registration.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

AMHERST TWP. — A minivan was completely destroyed in a fire that shut down the turnpike briefly this morning, according to the Highway Patrol.

Trooper Phil Ralston said the driver was eastbound at mile marker 137, which is between state Route 58 and Baumhart Road, about 8 a.m. when the Chevrolet Venture mini van, which was pulling a camper trailer caught on fire.

Another driver saw the flames and alerted the driver about the fire, and he was able to pull over, Ralston said.

The van became fully engulfed in flames, Ralston said, and is a total loss. The camper trailer had only minor damage. Ralston blamed the fire on a vehicle defect.

Firefighters from South Amherst and Florence Township responded.

Ralston said the eastbound lanes of the turnpike were completely closed for about 25 minutes, and one lane remained blocked for about an hour.