Thursday, March 24, 2005
The second shooting victim was in critical condition.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Three men ran from 203 W. Marion Ave., where Allen D. Crockett lay shot to death and Samuel Collier Sr. was barely breathing.
Neighbors who heard gunfire around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday saw two men jump over the porch of the house where the shooting took place. Another man ran down the driveway, police said. One of the neighbors grabbed his shotgun, entered the house and saw the victims. The door had been left open. Police found no signs of forced entry.
Victims
Crockett, 31, of Fairmont Avenue, was shot in the chest and also had a bloody bruise near his left eye. Police found him lying on his back between the living and dining rooms with his sweat pants down to his knees. He was dead at the scene.
Police found Collier, 49, the resident of the Marion Avenue house, sitting on the couch, barely breathing. He, too, had been shot in the chest, police said. Collier was in critical condition Wednesday at St. Elizabeth Health Center.
"Drug related," Lt. Robin Lees said of the shootings. Lees said Crockett served time in prison for manslaughter in 1995; he killed a man who slapped his mother.
A bag with a large amount of suspected crack cocaine was found between Collier's feet, police said. After Collier was lifted up, a bag of suspected marijuana was found under the cushion where he had been sitting, reports state.
Crockett is the city's eighth homicide this year and the fifth murder this month. At this time last year, the city had recorded six homicides.