Man on trial in girl’s fatal shooting

The defendant allegedly drove the car from which the shots were fired.

YOUNGSTOWN — Opening statements will be at 9 a.m. today in the jury trial of Damon K. Clark in the drive-by shooting death of 3-year-old Cherish M. Moreland on the city’s East Side.

Clark, 23, of Dogwood Lane, was indicted on two counts of aggravated murder, one count of murder and one count of improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation.

Clark was the driver of a car from which the Hilton Avenue girl was shot as she walked with her aunt on Stewart Avenue on May 5, police reports said.

The trial is before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

The jury trial of Clark’s co-defendant, Stoney Williams, 19, of Dorothy Avenue, is to begin before Judge Sweeney on April 14. Police said Williams, who was indicted on the same charges, fired two shots from the car, one of them hitting Cherish in the head and killing her.

Williams is a son of Willie “Flip” Williams, who was executed in October 2005 for the 1991 shooting deaths of four men in Youngstown.

The shots were fired after Clark and two of his friends were asked to leave a Stewart Avenue house because they were drunk, police reports said.

The man who asked the trio to leave was outside with his aunt and her niece, Cherish, when the shots were fired, according to police reports.

One aggravated murder count charges Clark and Williams with purposely causing the girl’s death with prior calculation and design, and the other specifies Cherish was under age 13. The murder count says the girl was killed when shots were fired at a house. Gun specifications accompany all counts.

The case is being prosecuted by Dawn P. Krueger, assistant county prosecutor. Atty. John B. Juhasz is representing Clark.