Man sentenced in shooting death

‘It was a cold, calculated offense that transpired,’ the judge said.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Terrance E. Brown was a righteous man who sacrificed his life trying to ensure the welfare of his nieces and nephews, the victim’s aunt and a prosecutor said before the man who killed him was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison.

Adopting the prosecutor’s recommendation, Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the sentence Tuesday on Jonathan L. Clay, 24, of Winona Avenue. Clay was convicted by a jury last week of aggravated murder with a gun specification in the June 26 drive-by shooting death of Brown, 27, of South Truesdale Avenue.

The prosecution said Clay fired a shotgun blast from a sport-utility vehicle that hit Brown in the neck and killed him instantly as Brown tried to escape the gunfire by entering his sister’s apartment in the 1400 block of Woodcrest Avenue on the city’s East Side.

Clay decided to “shoot whoever was out there” because he thought the SUV had been fired upon moments earlier in the same neighborhood, said Martin P. Desmond, assistant county prosecutor.

When he heard the first gunfire, Brown went outside to check on the welfare of his nieces and nephews who were playing outside, and then Brown became a victim of the gunfire from the SUV, Desmond said.

“We know that we can’t get our nephew back. His mother can’t get her son back. We know that there’s a void in our hearts that can’t be filled,” Brown’s aunt, Yolanda L. Johnson, told the judge. “Do the right thing by us,” she urged the judge. “He lost his life pushing children through a door” to safety, she said of Brown.

“Rarely do we have a [homicide] case where we have a victim who is completely innocent,” Desmond said.

“By that I mean no criminal record, no drugs in his system, no alcohol in his system, an individual who ran outside when he heard gunshots to look for his nieces and nephews to make sure that they were OK — an individual who put himself in harm’s way to protect others.”

Desmond added that Clay has shown no remorse.

“I’m sorry for what this family’s going through, but I stand by my innocence,” Clay told the judge.

“It was a very cold, calculated offense that transpired. You took the life of a young man who was just beginning his life as you are,” Judge Evans told Clay.

Detective John Kelty of the Youngstown Police Department, who investigated the case, said of the sentence, “It sends a message that if you choose to shoot at people, the sentence is going to be stiff,” regardless of whether the person killed is the intended victim.

Clay’s cousin, Jason O. Clay, 24, of Winona Avenue, who the prosecution alleges was the SUV driver, goes on trial before Judge Evans at a later date on charges of complicity to aggravated murder with a gun specification, and he faces the same potential penalty if convicted.

The Clays were arrested in July in East Liverpool, and the case also was investigated by East Liverpool police.