Monday, February 25, 2008
HOWLAND — A woman who was shot in Campbell drove herself and her live-in boyfriend to their Howland residence without realizing she’d been shot before dying of her injury, a detective said.
“She felt some pain, but that was it. There was hardly any bleeding,” externally, said Detective Gus Nicolaou of the Campbell police department.
The victim, Diana Noble, 39, died of internal bleeding from the gunshot wound in her left side, said Nicolaou, who was at the autopsy performed Sunday morning by Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, a forensic pathologist, at Trumbull Memorial Hospital.
The detective added that a bullet slug was retrieved from her body during the autopsy, but he said its caliber and the type of gun that could have fired it have not been determined. Police haven’t recovered any gun in the case.
“All we have is a vague description” of two young black men as suspects given by the woman’s boyfriend, Thomas Butcher, 57, of 1460 Stillwagon Road, Howland, the detective said.
Butcher told police he heard three gunshots when Noble was shot sometime late Friday or early Saturday near the Michael J. Kirwan Homes, and Butcher wasn’t sure of the time, Nicolaou said. Nicolaou said the shooting was drug-related, but he declined to be more specific.
Kirwan Homes is a public housing complex on Jackson Street operated by the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority.
Butcher told police a Wilson Avenue gasoline station where the couple stopped to check for Noble’s wound was closed when they got there. That gasoline station closes at 11 p.m.
When the couple arrived in Butcher’s sport utility vehicle at their Howland residence, Noble “sat down, smoked some crack and died,” according to Butcher’s statement to police, Nicolaou said.
Butcher called 911 to summon Howland police and an ambulance to his residence at 10:20 a.m. Saturday after finding Noble dead, Nicolaou said. Police impounded the SUV. Noble lived with Butcher for 18 to 24 months before her death, Nicolaou said.