YOUNGSTOWN Wedding ring traded for drugs leads to slaying

The man was slain while trying to retrieve his wife's wedding ring.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The homicide victim's wife voiced concern for groceries in her car trunk.
A patrolman guided Michelle Cannell back to the rear seat of a cruiser on Woodland Avenue.
"Stay in the car, ma'am. You'll stay warm," the officer said. "The last thing you should worry about is your groceries."
The distraught woman did as she was told Monday afternoon. Her hysteria then shifted to the scene before her.
John Cannell, her 32-year-old husband, lay dead under a white sheet on the sidewalk in front of 1004 Woodland. He'd been shot in the chest around 2:40 p.m.
"We seen him and confronted him," Cannell's wife said to no one in particular about the suspect. "A friend of his rode up in a red car."
The Quentin Drive man confronted the shooter and the two argued, said Lt. Robin Lees, police department information officer. The argument involved property that belonged to the victim's wife, Lees said.
The 31-year-old woman told police that she had traded her wedding ring for drugs in the area the night before and that her husband had gone to retrieve it.
Her husband argued with a tall, black man with braids who pulled out a handgun, pointed it at him, fired a single shot, then fled west on Woodland in an older red Cougar, she said.
An initial investigation by Detective Sgts. Rod Rodway and John Kelty led to a house on Ridge Avenue, one block over from Woodland, Lees said. The place was searched with the resident's permission and some items taken, which Lees declined to describe.
At crime scene
Passers-by stopped their cars on Overland Avenue and wandered over to the crime scene. Others walked over from Woodland and Ridge.
Detective Sgt. Cindy Dellick's gloveless hands stiffened in the frigid air as she stretched yellow crime scene tape across Woodland, just west of the body.
Patrolman John Patton, crime lab officer, marked the spot where a casing was found in the street. He measured the distance to the body, which lay near an old, crushed trash can.
One woman said she'd been house-sitting for a friend when she heard the commotion of police and ambulance sirens. She described the area as one where drugs are readily available.
"That's a shame," the woman said, eyeing the body covered by the sheet. "It's too close to the holidays for this."
As Michelle Cannell's black Pontiac Grand Am was towed, she was still concerned about the groceries inside. She was taken downtown for questioning by detectives.
Lees said the investigation is focusing on one suspect.
Darnell Simpson told police he had seen and knew the victim but couldn't identify the shooter. "It seems like the [shot] came out of nowhere," he said as he waved his arms in the middle of the street.
Simpson and the victim's wife spoke for a while as she sat in the rear of a cruiser.
The homicide is the city's 32nd of the year. There were 28 homicides at this time last year.
meade@vindy.com