Grand jury to hear evidence in soldier’s shooting death

By Denise Dick

The victim’s mother doesn’t believe her son’s shooting was an accident.

AUSTINTOWN — The case of a Burkey Road man accused of murder in the shooting death of an Army private will be heard by a Mahoning County grand jury.

Judge Scott D. Hunter of Mahoning County Court bound over the case of Donnie Reed, 49, on Wednesday after a preliminary hearing.

Reed, who remains at the Mahoning County Jail on a $1 million bond, is charged with murder in the death of Randy Davis, 22, of Boardman and Youngstown.

“He’s charged with murder,” said Debra Zuccaro, Davis’ mother. “We believe he murdered my son. We don’t believe it was an accident.”

Davis, along with a small group of other men, were at Reed’s Burkey Road split-level home the night of April 4.

According to witnesses at the preliminary hearing, Davis, who was a private in the Army, asked to see Reed’s guns. Reed led Davis back to a bedroom and the witnesses then heard a gunshot.

“He said, ‘[Expletive], I shot him,’” Ron Davis, 23, Davis’ brother, said of Reed’s statement after they heard the gun go off. “‘Call the cops.’”

Ron Davis said that Reed seemed calm.

Randy Davis had been shot in the forehead and died.

Reed initially told police that he handed Randy Davis the gun, turned away and then heard the gunfire.

Gunshot residue tests by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, however, indicate that Reed — not Randy Davis — fired the gun, authorities have said.

Ron Davis and another witness, Wade Mitcheltree, who was also at the house at the time of the shooting, both testified that there was no known animosity between Reed and Randy Davis and there were no arguments between the men that night.

Mitcheltree described Reed as panicked after the shooting.

Township police detective Sgt. Dan Kosco, one of the investigators in the case, testified that the gun used, a 1911 Smith Wesson semi-automatic handgun, is equipped with two safety devices. To disengage the safeties, a person must squeeze the hand grip, he said.

Atty. Joseph W. Gardner, who represents Reed, told the judge that to substantiate a murder charge, the prosecution has to show that a defendant had intent.

“There’s no evidence that he intended to shoot this man,” Gardner said. He said that a charge of reckless or negligent homicide would be more appropriate.

Kenneth Cardinal, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, said those charges might apply if Reed had not told police at the time of the shooting that he didn’t fire the gun.