YOUNGSTOWN Jury gets case of man charged with murder
The defense says someone else did it. The prosecutor says that doesn't matter.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Jurors were to begin deliberating today whether Lorice Moore played a role in the killing of a man he'd known since childhood.
Moore, 25, of McGuffey Road, is on trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court charged with murder. Police and prosecutors say he shot and killed Stephen Shackleford, 29, of McBride Street on March 19.
The nine female and three male jurors heard closing arguments late Wednesday afternoon from Assistant Prosecutor Michael Maillis and defense attorney Gary Van Brocklin, after which Judge Maureen A. Cronin dismissed them for the evening.
Besides murder, jurors will also be able to consider lesser offenses of involuntary manslaughter and complicity to involuntary manslaughter.
In his closing argument, Van Brocklin said there's no proof that Moore had a gun or that he fired it if he did have one. He said another man, Eddie Bryant, was the shooter who killed Shackleford.
Bryant was also charged in the case, but a jury found him innocent in July.
What witness said
Maillis said the only eyewitness to the shooting, Cicely Floyd of McBride Street, testified that she saw Moore chase Shackleford out of his house, which was just up the street from hers, and shoot him in the back.
She also saw Bryant, who was waiting outside behind Shackleford's house, step out and fire at him. Maillis described the shooting as an ambush.
"It was a cowardly shooting of a man who did not deserve to die," he said.
Maillis said even if jurors believe Van Brocklin's version, Moore is still guilty because he participated by chasing Shackleford out his back door where Bryant was waiting.
Van Brocklin denied that Moore chased Shackleford. He said Moore was standing nearby, heard gunshots and ran to the scene to see what happened.
But Maillis said Moore was in the house, chasing Shackleford with a gun.
"Why would he run unless somebody was chasing him?" he said.
bjackson@vindy.com