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Murderer of three gets life
Joined by tragedy, people who’d never met before the trial embraced after the verdict.
YOUNGSTOWN — After a jury spared the life of triple-murderer Curtis Young, members of his victims’ family reached across the aisle between the courtroom benches and embraced members of Young’s family.
“We’re hurting for both families,” explained Deborah Chattman of Warren.
Young, 26, of North Center Street, was convicted in the July 31, 2007, shooting deaths of: Chattman’s niece, Helen Moore, 29, of Cassius Street, who was Young’s ex-girlfriend; Moore’s nearly full-term fetus; and Moore’s 8-year-old son, Ceonei.
The same jurors, who had found Young guilty as charged of all aggravated murder counts and all firearm and death-penalty specifications on May 8, recommended Tuesday afternoon that he serve life in prison without parole.
After the jurors’ penalty verdict was read, Chattman, who had been sitting behind the prosecution table, stretched her arms across the aisle to embrace Young’s brothers, Antonio, 13, Reginald, 24, and DeAngelo, 33, all of Youngstown, who had been sitting behind the defense table.
“We were sitting on opposite sides of the courtroom, and yet we’re joined together by a tragedy,” Chattman said. “These are people we’ve never met before, and yet they’re hurting like we are,” she said of members of Young’s family.
The nine-woman, three-man jury began its penalty deliberations Monday afternoon and was sequestered in a hotel overnight before resuming deliberations Tuesday morning.
The jurors’ choices were 25 years to life in prison, 30 to life, life without parole or death.
Judge Maureen A. Sweeney, of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who presided over the trial, will decide Young’s sentence, but she cannot impose death now that the jury has recommended one of the life sentence options. Sentencing will be at 9 a.m. Friday.
“We looked at the mitigating circumstances surrounding Curtis’ life, and we feel the verdict was a just verdict,” Chattman said.
She was referring to Monday’s testimony by Young’s mother, Catherine Young, and Young’s brothers, Kilan, Reginald and DeAngelo, who said Curtis Young endured poverty, welfare dependency and utility shutoffs while growing up in a crowded, single-parent home in Birmingham, Ala., before he came to Youngstown as a teenager.
Although Young’s troubled childhood wasn’t an excuse for his actions, “We learned of a difficult life, and it caused us to have more of a merciful feeling toward him,” Chattman said.
Also referring to that testimony, Chattman’s sister, Arvella Smith of Warren, said she agreed with the jury’s decision to spare Young’s life.
“The jury was just. I think they paid close attention,” Smith said of the jurors. “He deserved a chance to live,” she added.
The shooting followed a rolling argument that went from Moore’s home to Young’s home and consisted of separate cars, driven by Helen Moore, her sister, Mary, both with children in them, and Young.
In front of his home, Young fired a single .38-caliber bullet that passed through Helen Moore’s neck and lodged in the head of Ceonei, who was her front-seat passenger, before the car she was driving left the road and overturned onto its passenger side.
“We got what we came here for,” Chattman said, noting that her family had come to court in ‘‘a search for the truth.”