Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The suspect was picked up in a Boardman restaurant.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A 23-year-old Warren man is being held in the Trumbull County Jail in lieu of a 500,000 bond on a charge of murder.
Matthew R. Smith of Williamsburg Street was arraigned Monday before municipal Judge Terry Ivanchak, who scheduled a preliminary hearing for 10:15 a.m. Wednesday.
Smith, who was taken into custody Friday in Boardman, is accused of last Tuesday's shotgun slaying of Waymon Keller, 50, of Euclid outside a Lancer Court apartment building on the West Side.
Keller was found lying outside the building after being shot in the stomach with a shotgun.
Warren police Lt. Gary Vingle said Monday that investigators don't have a motive for the shooting and don't know the relationship between Smith and Keller. The weapon used in the slaying has not been found, he noted.
Boardman Patrol Officers Anthony Ciccotelli and Matthew Sell were dispatched to Market Street and Forest Lake Drive after receiving a report Friday night that four men were walking northbound in the southbound lane of Market, obstructing traffic.
When police arrived, they noticed four men walking into a restaurant in the 8000 block of Market.
The four told Ciccotelli and Sell that they were involved in an argument with a friend who dropped them off. They were trying to find another friend to give them rides home, the officers reported.
Murder warrant
While the four were being interviewed, Youngstown police and federal marshals arrived and identified Smith as having a murder warrant for him out of Warren.
He also had a warrant charging him with a probation violation for a conviction of carrying a concealed weapon.
Smith was also issued a summons charging him with obstructing official business because he had originally given police an alias. He was turned over to Warren police.
Sell and Ciccotelli reported finding a remote vehicle opener on a key chain. Smith reportedly told them it was for his vehicle that was at his Warren residence.
But when police checked the area, they found Smith's Chevrolet Blazer in a restaurant parking lot in the 8300 block of Market. It appeared the vehicle had run out of gasoline before the four started walking.
One of the four turned out to be a juvenile, Dominique L. Dorsey, 17, of Anderson-Anthony Road, Leavittsburg. Dorsey was turned over to the Trumbull County Sheriff's Department for violating probation.
yovich@vindy.com