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Murder suspect was provoked, his defense will argue today
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Curtis Young watches as the trial in Maureen Sweeney's courtroom gets underway Monday Morning. Curtis Young, 26, is charged with the July 31, 2007, aggravated murders of his ex-girlfriend, Helen Moore, 29, her full-term fetus, and her 8-year-old son, Ceonei.
YOUNGSTOWN — After only two days of testimony, the prosecution rested its case Tuesday afternoon in the capital murder trial of Curtis Young, and defense witnesses will begin testifying at 10 a.m. today.
A nine-woman, three-man jury is hearing the case, which is before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Young, 26, is charged with aggravated murder with firearm and death-penalty specifications.
The charges stem from a July 31, 2007, shooting, which caused the deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Helen Moore, 29, of Cassius Street, her nearly full-term fetus, and her 8-year-old son, Ceonei, who was the front-seat passenger in the car Moore was driving when she was shot outside Young’s Center Street residence.
The indictment says Young killed purposely and with prior calculation and design.
Support for that assertion came from Moore’s sister, Mary, who testified that she heard Young threaten to kill Helen Moore when Young and Helen Moore argued at Helen Moore’s residence on the day of the shooting.
City police officer Sharon Burton, one of the first police officers at the shooting scene, testified Tuesday that Mary Moore had told her immediately after the shot was fired, and Helen Moore’s car went off the road and overturned, that Young had threatened in that argument to kill Helen Moore and her family.
During the rolling argument that followed, Mary Moore and her son, Garrison, then 14, testified that they heard Young telling whoever he was speaking to on his cellular phone from McGuffey Mall to get his gun.
In his opening statement, Martin P. Desmond, assistant county prosecutor, noted that the gunshot hit Helen Moore in the left rear part of her neck, causing the spinal cord injury that killed her almost instantly, and exited from the right side of her neck below her jaw.
Police believe the same .38-caliber bullet then lodged in Ceonei’s head, from which it was recovered during the autopsy.
The defense, however, has laid the foundation for its argument that Young fired in self-defense and that the shooting was provoked by Helen Moore, who it alleges tried to run over Young with her car as Young stood on Center Street near his residence.
“She put her foot on the accelerator and started straight for Curtis. When Curtis pulled that trigger, he was in fear for his life. He was about to get hit by a car, and he was going to do anything he could do to divert her from hitting him. She hit the curb and went up over the curb with such force that the car went up on its side,” defense lawyer Douglas B. Taylor said in his opening statement to the jury on Monday.
Taylor also said the evidence would show that Young tried to remove himself from the confrontation during the rolling argument over East Side streets that started at Helen Moore’s residence and ended on Center Street.
Young was the first to leave Cassius Street, Taylor said. Young also was the first to leave a convenience store and McGuffey Mall, where Mary and Helen Moore tried to box in his car with theirs, Taylor added.
On Tuesday, jurors heard an audio recording of a series of 911 calls made by Mary Moore during the pursuit.
On the recording, Mary Moore is heard giving Young’s license plate number to the dispatcher and keeping the dispatcher updated on the location of the cars.
“We’ll get somebody there,” the dispatcher says.
“Please tell them to hurry,” Mary Moore replies.
As occupants of Mary Moore’s car and Helen Moore’s car communicated by cellular phone during the chase, the dispatcher asks if Mary Moore can tell her sister to drive to the police station.
But, by that time, the cars were already arriving at the North Center Street shooting scene, where hysterical voices are heard describing the shooting, the overturned car and the fact that Helen Moore was not breathing.
In a judgment entry issued Tuesday, Judge Sweeney ruled that the prosecution may not introduce into evidence recordings of telephone calls between Young and others during Young’s time in the county jail because prosecutors failed to disclose them to the defense until Friday. “The court is not going to allow surprises on the eve of trial,” she ruled.
Although about 300 conversations were recorded, the prosecution said it only intended to introduce conversations from two days for purposes of impeaching defense witnesses, if needed.
milliken@vindy.com