Thursday, August 23, 2001
Police had been in the area about two hours earlier, investigating a report of shots fired.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Vaschon May, wearing latex gloves and dressed all in black, including a ski mask, was found shot to death today, a gun by his feet.
May's body was found around 12:40 a.m. in the woods behind 1015 Erie St. on the South Side. Because so many relatives and others showed up, officers had to set up a perimeter for crowd control.
May's brother, 26-year-old Terrence May, had been placed in a cruiser for questioning but kicked his way out by breaking a window, reports show.
Patrolman Steve Schiffhauer, using a leash, let his dog, Rico, confront the emotional crowd when some people began assaulting Patrolmen John Aeppli and Kenneth Blair.
Detectives Sgt. John Kelty and Ron Rodway and the crime lab were called to the scene.
Anonymous call: Vaschon May's girlfriend, Melissa Green, 20, had received an anonymous call, telling her he had been shot near the Pyatt Street Market, and she went there with Terrence May and Melissa Lawson, reports show.
Police had been in the area around 10:45 p.m. Wednesday, when Anthony Roman, 26, who lives with his grandparents on Erie Street, reported that he had been shot at with a machine gun and returned fire.
Roman told police that he heard a disturbance outside near ceramic statues and then his Chihuahua growled at the front door.
When Roman stepped outside, he heard someone fleeing in the back yard and yelled in the direction of the noise for the person to get off his property, that he had a gun and was calling police. He told police that he heard someone screaming and then rapid gunfire.
Roman "squeezed off three shots from his Glock .40-caliber handgun in the direction of the gunfire, toward the back yard," Patrolman Ronnie Jones said in his report of the interview. Jones checked the area but found nothing, not even the casings Roman said had fallen from his gun.
Here's the scene: When police returned to search for Vaschon May, based on a call from his girlfriend, they saw Roman standing by his backyard fence with a flashlight. "Here he is and there's a gun next to him," police quoted Roman as saying.
Vaschon May had on black jeans, black shirt, black tennis shoes, a black ski mask and rubber latex gloves, reports show. A .45-caliber Ruger semi-automatic handgun was found near his feet.
He was identified for police by his brother.
Vindicator files show that Vaschon May was charged with a double homicide in 1995. A grand jury chose not to indict him June 23, 1995, according to the Mahoning County clerk of courts office.
He last made news in August 1999 when charged with shooting a man in the shoulder and threatening a witness.
Police reports list his death as a homicide, the city's 19th of the year. The last homicide occurred July 21.
There had been 20 homicides in the city by this time last year.
meade@vindy.com