Police probe daylight homicide, shootings
The victim had fought off two armed attackers in Warren on Dec. 15.
STAFF report
HOWLAND — Police are investigating the daylight shooting of a 21-year-old former Warren man on the doorstep of his luxury condominium.
Cameron L. Murray, a KraftMaid employee who had moved into the condominium at 2200 N. Sandpiper Court about four months earlier from an address on Homewood Avenue in Warren, was found shot to death at about 4 p.m. Tuesday.
A construction worker noticed Murray’s body in the doorway from across the street, where he was working on an unfinished condominium, said Paul Monroe, Howland police chief.
Monroe said it appears Murray was shot in the doorway a short time before the construction worker noticed him.
Though the shooting apparently took place in the daylight, it was a blustery day, and there was a lot of noise in the neighborhood because of the construction, Monroe said.
No neighbors reported hearing or seeing anything, Monroe said.
The development, Sawgrass Luxury Condominiums, was built beginning in 2004. It is on the south side of East Market Street, just east of the Market Place Plaza.
Monroe said Warren police began to investigate the shooting of two other men at about the same time Tuesday afternoon after the men showed up at Warren hospitals.
He said it is possible Murray’s death and the shooting of the two other men are related.
Warren police have handled the investigation into the shootings of the two other men, Monroe said.
One of the men arrived at Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital with numerous gunshot wounds to the abdomen at about 4 p.m. — around the same time the other man arrived at St. Joseph Health Center with a bullet wound to the buttocks, Monroe said.
The two departments are also getting assistance from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.
Murray was the victim of an attempted abduction in Warren at 11:37 p.m. Dec. 15 that involved two men who approached him as he was walking to his car from a friend’s house on Linden Avenue Northeast.
Murray told police the two men in their late teens approached him from behind a garbage receptacle behind the Corner Pocket bar on East Market Street and ordered him to get into Murray’s vehicle.
Murray refused to get into the car and began to fight with the men. Someone came out of a house on Linden, and it scared the two men away, Murray said.
Before the men left, however, one of them got into Murray’s car and drove it several blocks north toward East Market Street before leaving it on Charles Avenue Northeast. Murray heard six to eight gunshots as the men drove away, he said.
A neighbor on Linden — just across East Market Street from where the confrontation took place — reported having three gunshot holes in her house at about the same time.
A Warren police officer who was in the area also heard the gunshots.
Records in Warren Municipal Court indicate that Murray was convicted in 2006 of possession of drug paraphernalia and in 2005 of disorderly conduct. Both convictions are misdemeanors. He has no felony record in Trumbull County.
Monroe asks anyone with information that might be helpful to the investigation to call (330) 675-2730 and ask for Howland police.
Monroe said Tuesday’s homicide was the first in the township in seven years. The last one involved Robert S. Fingerhut, killed by Nate Jackson, who conspired with Fingerhut’s ex-wife, Donna Roberts, in December 2001.
Lt. Gary Vingle of the Warren police said his department is investigating the possibility that the two men who arrived at Warren hospitals with gunshot wounds were involved in Murray’s death and in the Dec. 15 incident but said it is too early to tell.
Vingle said he doesn’t know whether the two men in the hospital are likely to be the men who tried to abduct or rob Murray Dec. 15 because Murray didn’t give a detailed description of his attackers.
Police are not detaining the two men in the hospital, Vingle said; they are not charged with any crimes.