CAMPBELL Crime, verdict mystify May kidnapping victim
Last week's verdict was devastating, the Campbell woman said.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- It was the day before her 25th birthday and Maria Rosario Romano has just come from watching her 7-year-old son's first Little League baseball game of the season.
She stopped by her mother's house to pick up her younger children, ages 2 and 4. As she put the kids in her minivan to head home, she was thinking about starting real estate school, for which she'd made a down payment earlier that day.
"I loved my life," the petite Campbell woman said.
But in the span of a few seconds, the life she'd known was changed that night in May.
Changed forever, she says.
As she got into the driver's seat a man approached from behind, grabbed her and forced her into the vehicle. She fought with him, desperately fearing for her children's safety and wondering why she was being attacked.
"I offered to give my purse. I offered to give him everything I had," she said. "I just begged him to not hurt my kids."
Shot in hip: Instead, the man shot her in the left hip. The bullet tore through her abdomen and out her right hip, shattering her right pelvic bone.
When she asked the gunman why he shot her, the man fired again, but the second shot missed.
What followed was a six-hour ordeal during which Romano and her children were taken to an apartment on Glenwood Avenue while the kidnappers telephoned her husband and demanded $100,000 in ransom.
The family was eventually taken to a gas station in Campbell and set free. Police found them there after the 7-year-old called 911 from a nearby pay phone. The ransom was not paid, Romano said.
The true mystery of it all is that she still does not understand why she was targeted. Until that moment, she never had a reason to believe she was in danger, she said.
Last week, a jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court acquitted Jose Placeres and Joseph Gonzalez, who were accused of taking part in the crimes. The verdict left Romano dumbfounded and devastated.
"I can't believe the jury just let those people go," she said as her youngest child, a girl now 3, climbed next to her on the couch.
Two suspects at large: Neither Gonzalez nor Placeres was believed to be the one who actually kidnapped and shot Romano and the children. That man is yet to be identified or arrested. Romano said she saw his face but did not know him. If she sees him again, she'll remember.
Police think they know who did it, but the suspect has fled the area and is believed to be in Puerto Rico. Another man, known only as "Cuba," is also being sought.
Despite the jury's decision, Romano said she's convinced that Gonzalez and Placeres were involved. Now that they're free, she knows their paths could cross one day.
"I don't know how I would react to seeing those people again," she said. "But just thinking about it literally makes me sick."
And though Gonzalez's mother and lawyer criticized the Campbell Police Department for its investigation of the case, Romano would have none of it. She said the investigation was fine.
"I blame the jury for this," she said. "I feel that justice has failed me."
Aftermath: Now she walks with a severe limp and uses a cane or walker. She doesn't sleep at night. She looks over her shoulder everywhere she goes, wondering whether it will happen again.
But in spite of all that, Romano said she prays daily that police will eventually find and charge the man who kidnapped and shot her, even though it would mean going through another trial.
"If they catch the other two, I'll go through this all over again," she said. "As long as they pay for what they did to me and my children."
bjackson@vindy.com