MURDER TRIAL Witness says she yelled at suspect

The witness said she threatened to call police, but never did.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Chanel Boone said she watched as a man punched Olivia Hubbert and stomp repeatedly on her after Hubbert fell to the ground outside a Victory Annex housing complex building.
"I'm about to call the police," she screamed at the man. "I'm going to call the police."
Boone testified Friday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that she screamed the words at Christopher Love on the morning of July 5, 1999.
But she never called the police.
"I was just saying that to scare him," she testified. "I didn't think it was this serious."
Family and friends of Hubbert who had gathered in the courtroom shook their heads. The woman, 44, died that night. She was asphyxiated by crushed bones in her neck, said assistant prosecutor Robert Andrews.
Victory Annex, a government-subsidized housing complex on the city's East Side, is bounded by Magnolia and Stewart avenues.
The trial
Boone is one of four eyewitnesses to testify in the murder trials of Love, 25, and Robert Blackshear, 44.
Both men are accused of beating Hubbert and carrying her into her apartment and leaving her there with her clothing partially removed. They are being tried before the same jury in the courtroom of Judge Robert G. Lisotto.
Blackshear and his attorneys, Dennis A. DiMartino and Martin E. Yavorcik, say Blackshear never beat Hubbert but that Love caused her death. They also say that Blackshear never helped Love carry her into her apartment.
Love and his attorney Paul C. Conn say that Love was not the assailant but that Hubbert was beaten by Blackshear or another man.
Testimony
Boone testified that she was 19 at the time and at a friend's apartment when she saw Hubbert, known as "Libby," run down the street with Blackshear chasing her with a knife.
"Run Libby! He almost catch you!" Boone said she shouted as the pair ran by. She then jogged after them because she "was just being nosy," but returned to her friend's apartment when she realized that Blackshear wasn't stabbing the woman. He slapped her with the knife, testimony showed.
Boone said she saw them walking back toward the apartment with Blackshear clutching Hubbert's sleeve. Then Love showed up and attacked Hubbert, she said.
She said she heard Blackshear say, "Leave her alone," three or four times before the beating began.
After threatening to call police, she tried to get into her friend's apartment, where a man refused to let her inside, telling her she couldn't use the phone to call for help. She testified that she walked to her own apartment. There, a friend arrived to use the phone, calling 911 but hanging up.
Blackshear came to her door asking to use the phone, Boone testified. He was carrying a set of keys. Boone said she refused to let him in because she did not want to be involved.
Conn asked Boone how she could remember the event if it was not important to her.
"It wasn't an important moment in my life," she testified. "But somebody lost their life and I can remember that day."
Testimony continues Monday.
viviano@vindy.com