Family will keep an eye on assailant

Witness credibility was a problem, an assistant prosecutor said.
By DEBORA SHAULIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Family members of shooting victim Zymond Bellard say they won't let him be forgotten, especially if Robert A. Parker gets into further trouble.
"He's gonna live on. We'll not let this die," Gwendolyn Bellard, Zymond's mother, said Friday.
She and two of Zymond's sisters were in tears Friday after Parker, 25, of Hine Street, was sentenced to nine years in prison by Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Parker pleaded guilty last October to voluntary manslaughter with a firearm specification for fatally wounding Bellard, 17, on Jan. 19, 2005, at an apartment on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Parker also pleaded guilty to felonious assault with a firearm specification for shooting another man, Jerome Morgan, on Jan. 12, 2005.
Attorneys for the prosecution and defense agreed on a sentence recommendation: seven years' prison for voluntary manslaughter; six years' prison for felonious assault, to be served concurrently; and mandatory one-year prison terms for each of the firearm specifications, to be served consecutively.
Here was the problem
Assistant County Prosecutor Jay Macejko said he believed a jury would question the credibility of witnesses in Bellard's death. The woman who rented the apartment "allowed it to be used as a drug den," he said. The felonious-assault case was the stronger of the two and, if Parker was convicted, carried a maximum sentence of 11 years, he said.
The nine-year prison sentence cannot be appealed since both sides agreed to the terms.
"It's a bitter pill for this court to swallow," Judge Krichbaum said before accepting their recommendation.
Marquia Jarmon, Zymond's sister, stormed out of the courtroom before sentencing was finished and pushed a courtroom door into a wall. She was briefly detained by sheriff's deputies and brought before Judge Krichbaum for contempt of court. Jarmon apologized for creating a disturbance, "but nine years for a murder? C'mon now ... That just hurt," she said to the judge.
Judge Krichbaum said he didn't like the sentence either, but it was better than Parker's being acquitted. "You can't have perfection in every case," he said. The judge said Jarmon's apology was sufficient.
What mother said
Afterward, Gwendolyn Bellard said she appreciated that Judge Krichbaum didn't send her daughter to jail but she doesn't believe Parker got the sentence he deserves.
"I know people who were charged with assault and got 13 years," Jarmon said. "Now where's the justice in that?"
"I still want to know what the hell he killed my son for," Gwendolyn Bellard said.
Zymond Bellard didn't know Parker; he went to the apartment to pick up a girlfriend who associated with Parker, Gwendolyn Bellard said. She also is angry with the girlfriend of her late son, who claimed to be pregnant but never bore a child. She wonders if Zymond Bellard's death was part of another setup.
"Boo wasn't no angel, but Boo didn't have a criminal record, wasn't in and out of jail," Gwendolyn Bellard said, calling her son by his nickname.
The sentence did bring "a little piece of closure," she said.
shaulis@vindy.com