Neighbors breathe a sigh of relief

By Ed Runyan

Parents in the neighborhood are keeping a close eye on their kids.

WARREN — Park Avenue resident Valerie Keller says her children treated the news that a man had been arrested in the killing last month of a neighborhood diner owner “like a big party.”

Keller said the news produced a collective sigh of relief in the neighborhood near Freddie’s Diner at North Park and Forrest Street Northwest.

“A lot of us are very pleased,” Keller said of DNA evidence that allowed police to secure an arrest warrant and put Youngstown man Ardeed I. Mitchell, 28, behind bars Saturday. A judge denied him bond Monday.

A grand jury is expected to hear his case soon to determine whether formal murder and robbery charges will be filed against him for the death of Fred A. DeVengencie, 89, and the wounding of his son, Alfred DeVengencie, 71, at the diner Aug. 12.

Keller said the incident caused residents along North Park Avenue and throughout the northern end of the city to keep their children in the house rather than allow them to play outside during the final weeks of summer.

On Sunday, after hearing about Mitchell’s arrest, Keller said her girls went across the street to play with friends — though their father, John, was not far behind, she said.

The area along North Park Avenue has been hit hard by violence in the past 14 months, with Joseph D. Daniel, 33, being killed outside Benji Brown’s Bar and Grill on July 29, 2007, about a half-mile north on Park Avenue, and Johnny Williamson, 24, being killed at a house less than a block north of Keller’s home on Aug. 23, 2007.

The killers in both crimes have been convicted.

Keller, who has lived in her neat two-story home seven years, said she and her husband decided the most recent homicide was the last straw. They will be making a serious attempt to find a home somewhere else, she said.

Besides the killings, Keller and her husband are getting tired of seeing prostitutes cruise up and down the sidewalk in front of their home and said that some even urinate in their yard.

A house nearby was raided for drugs about six months ago, she noted.

Christina Campbell of Forrest Street, standing near the now-closed diner waiting with her child to catch the school bus Monday morning, said she is glad someone has been arrested in the killing.

“If they would get rid of the pimps and hookers, it would better,” she said.

Another mom, Trish Tenney of Forrest Street, said she would move away, but Forrest Street is better than government-subsidized housing, she said.

“That would be much worse,” she said.

Penny Rogers of Forrest Street said police have cracked down on prostitution in the months since the diner killing, but she doesn’t allow her children to play outside unsupervised.