Opening statements set Tuesday in aggravated murder case

YOUNGSTOWN — Opening statements will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the jury trial of James A. Hall, who is charged with aggravated murder with a gun specification in the Oct. 14, 2006, death of Jeffrey A. Queen of Austintown.

Queen, 35, of Lanterman Road, was shot three times in the torso with a .38-caliber gun.

The murder trial of Hall, 30, of Victoria Street, is before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Late today, the jury viewed Queen’s residence and the shooting scene.

Queen was an informant who had made undercover drug buys from Hall for police; and Queen was to testify against Hall in a federal cocaine trafficking case, according to J. Michael Thompson, assistant county prosecutor.

Thompson and Robert E. Bush Jr., chief of the criminal division of the county prosecutor’s office, are prosecuting the state case. Joseph Pinjuh, assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, is prosecuting the federal drug case.

Two days after a pre-trial hearing in the drug case, Hall picked Queen up at Queen’s Lanterman Road residence in Hall’s car and fatally shot him a few minutes later about a half-mile away off Riblett Road, Thompson said.

Neighbors reported hearing gunshots at 12:30 a.m., but a witness didn’t find Queen’s body in the woods in the 4000 block of Riblett until eight hours later.

For the complete story, see Tuesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com.