2 suspects in killings found incompetent to stand trial

One suspect is also charged with aggravated drug trafficking.

YOUNGSTOWN — Two suspects in recent killings in the city have been declared incompetent to stand trial.

They will go to a center where they’ll undergo mental health treatment for a year with the goal of restoring them to competency.

On Wednesday, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, sent James DiCioccio and David Klamer Jr. to the North Coast Behavioral Health Care Center’s Cleveland campus after they were found incompetent by a psychologist with the Forensic Psychiatric Center of Northeast Ohio.

Their treating doctor will report on their progress to the court in six months, said Timothy Franken, chief trial lawyer in the county prosecutor’s office. If they aren’t restored to competency after one year, the county probate court will decide their placement, he said.

The charges

DiCioccio, 50, was charged with murder in the March 11 choking death of Stephen A. Lawson, 34, a fellow resident of an Illinois Avenue group home for mentally ill men. A caregiver told police DiCioccio and Lawson had been fighting at the group home before Lawson was choked.

Klamer, 47, is charged with murder with a firearm specification in the Feb. 22 death of Richard Helms. Klamer told police he shot Helms as Helms tried to rob him in Klamer’s Randolph Street residence.

The indictment also charges Klamer with aggravated drug trafficking in an alleged offense involving Oxycontin on the same day.

Klamer, who threatened to harm himself after the shooting, was coaxed out of his residence by a hostage negotiator.