Deaths bring homicide toll in city to 39

‘They shot my son down like a dog,’
the mother of one victim said.

By PATRICIA MEADE

VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — If only they’d stuck to the plan to watch movies.

John M. Jones Jr. was shot dead about an hour after he left his parents’ home to rent videos. So was Garrick V. Willis.

Both were gunned down in the 400 block of Almyra Avenue around 9:35 p.m. Thursday.

Jones, 30, of Lucius Avenue, died on the sidewalk in front of 461 Almyra.

Willis, 29, of East Avondale Avenue, was found dead in the trunk of his Cadillac a few houses away in the driveway of a vacant house at 430 Almyra.

Yellow crime scene tape was still up Friday afternoon on the South Side street peppered with boarded-up vacant houses.

Jones and Willis are the city’s 38th and 39th homicide victims of the year. There were 32 homicides in 2006.

Jones and Willis were each hit several times. Numerous .45-caliber and 9mm casings were found in the driveway near the Cadillac and several .45-caliber casings were found near Jones’ body.

“My son left here about 8:15, he was taking his girlfriend to work and said he was going to get a video. But he went to Garrick’s house,” Gloria Jones said, crying hard in the living room of her Sherwood Avenue home Friday.

“My son did not do drugs or sell drugs. The detective told me he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They shot my son down like a dog.”

Capt. Kenneth Centorame, chief of detectives, said it appeared that Willis was the intended victim and there was more than one shooter. He said the motive “is unknown at this time.”

Willis had more than $2,000 and a little bit of marijuana in his jacket, Rick Jamrozik, a coroner’s investigator, said Friday. Court records show nothing recent, but Willis, a rap music producer, had two drug possession convictions.

Jones had a clean record, something his mother and father said won’t be believed because of the way he died. People will form their own opinion, John Jones Sr., 62, said, but no matter — he knows his son was a good kid.

“Ask anybody — he didn’t do wrong,” Gloria Jones, 57, said. “He had one fight in his whole life and that was in the fourth grade. He never had detention, never got kicked out of school. I want it made plain and clear he was a good child.”

She said the detective assigned to the case told her that her son ran after being shot. Since one of the bullets hit a leg, he didn’t make it very far before being shot again on the sidewalk, she said.

“He was supposed to be here at noon [Friday] to make lasagna with his sister,” Gloria Jones said, using a fist to pound her leg in anger. “After he left here he should have got the movie and taken his butt home. He’d be alive if he had.”

Kenneth Willis said Friday from his East Boston Avenue home that he and his wife, Shirley, last saw their son, who “was in and out of here a lot,” around 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

“Garrick and John were going to get movies. They grew up together and hadn’t seen each other over Christmas,” Kenneth Willis, 55, said. “I haven’t a clue why they were on Almyra.”

As a social worker, Kenneth Willis said the violent death of his son makes him understand first-hand the intensity of loss others have had to deal with. He said family was very important to Garrick.

Willis said he doesn’t want to speculate on why his son, who was raised with “do’s and don’ts,” was shot to death. He said he’ll wait until detectives can give him answers.

“This reminds me of the Old West — a once prosperous town is now a ghost town because of the lawlessness,” Willis said. “The culture has changed. I just hope the city gets a grasp on the crime.”

meade@vindy.com