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Teenager faces 29 counts in trial
The teenager accused in a deadly arson waited for the victims to fall asleep, prosecutors say.
YOUNGSTOWN — The Jan. 23 East Side house fire that killed six people was a premeditated act, prosecutors allege.
The evidence will show that Michael A. Davis, 18, sat up in his Bennington Avenue home one street away from the Crawford residence at 1645 Stewart Ave., waiting for everyone in that house to fall asleep, prosecutors allege in a court document filed Friday.
Davis faces an Oct. 6 jury trial before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on a 29-count aggravated murder and aggravated arson indictment with death penalty specifications. Authorities call the blaze the largest mass murder in the city’s history.
Once Davis believed everyone was asleep, he went to the Crawford residence and set the blaze at about 5 a.m., according to the document filed by Natasha K. Frenchko and J. Michael Thompson, assistant county prosecutors. He was angry at some occupants of that house whom he accused of stealing his cellular phone, the document states.
Investigators from the state fire marshal’s office will testify the Crawford’s front porch was doused with an ignitable liquid causing the blaze, the prosecutors wrote.
Carol Crawford, 46; her daughter, Jennifer R. Crawford, 23; and Jennifer’s four children, Ranaisha, 8; Jeannine, 5; Aleisha, 3; and Brandon, 2; died in the fire.
Five other people escaped from the burning house.
Davis made numerous statements to city police about the fire, first denying he set it, then admitting he set it, the prosecutors allege.
In one statement, Davis told police he set a piece of paper on fire and placed it in the driveway, causing the house to catch fire. Davis told his mother he started the fire by throwing a lit piece of paper on the couch on the front porch and that he didn’t mean to hurt anybody, the prosecutors allege.
The prosecutors made the revelations in a motion to introduce into trial evidence a previous house fire — in which a nearby resident implicated Davis — to illustrate what prosecutors call Davis’ planned pattern of behavior.
At 11 p.m. Dec. 31, 2007, Davis and two juveniles attacked a resident of 1650 Stewart Ave. with stones and hit him on the head when he opened his side door to investigate noises outside, prosecutors said. The trio ran away, and the victim went to a hospital.
After returning home from the hospital and lying down, that victim heard breaking glass in front of his house, looked outside and saw the same trio dousing and igniting a liquid in front of his house. When he tried to extinguish the fire, the trio threw burning objects at him, forcing him to flee his home, the prosecutors said.
The victim has identified Michael Davis as one of the group that doused his house with the liquid, ignited it and threw burning objects at him as he tried to extinguish the fire, Thompson and Frenchko said.
“In each case noted, the defendant, for whatever reason, targeted the inhabitants of each residence. He sat up until the early morning hours, watched the residences and waited for the perfect opportunity to go to the residences and start the fires,” they wrote. “In each case, he poured ignitable liquid on the front porches and started the fires,” they added.
To limit pretrial publicity, Judge Krichbaum has barred Thompson, Frenchko, and Davis’ defense lawyers, James Gentile and Ronald Yarwood, from discussing this case with the media outside the courtroom.