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Man’s cooperation could result in lighter sentence
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
Marcus Yager, the 23-year-old Vine Avenue Northeast man who idolized gangsters and fell in with two men who committed a brutal, gangland-style double murder on Wick Street Southeast last year, could walk out of the Trumbull County jail a free man next week.
Yager has been confined to the jail since his arrest April 21, 2009, in connection with the April 13, 2009, shooting deaths of Marvin Chaney, 26, and Lloyd McCoy Jr., 11.
Both were killed by gunfire that came from an AK-47 assault rifle used by Eugene Henderson, 26, and a handgun fired by Eugene Cumberbatch, 27. The men fired into Chaney’s house from beside a car in the street in front of the home.
Yager has testified that Henderson and Cumberbatch, both of Warren, went to Chaney’s home to kill him for stealing $3,000 and that neither Lloyd nor any of his other family members was supposed to get hurt.
A young nephew of Lloyd’s also was hit by a gunshot but survived. The house was struck by dozens of bullets.
Lloyd, a Warren elementary-school student who lived with his parents at another house on Wick Street, was visiting at the house along with other family members because his sister lived with Chaney.
Chaney died at the scene. Lloyd died about a week later, setting off a high-profile manhunt. On April 21, the day Lloyd died, a 23-year-old woman told police that Henderson, Cumberbatch and Yager were the killers. Yager gave police a taped interview the next day, saying he was in the back seat when Henderson and Cumberbatch committed the shootings.
Yager’s testimony at the trials of Henderson and Cumberbatch helped convict both men of two counts each of aggravated murder. Cumberbatch got a sentence of 38 years to life. Henderson awaits sentencing.
For his cooperation with authorities, prosecutors agreed to recommend that Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court give Yager a sentence of between one and five years in prison.
The sentencing hearing is set for Tuesday morning.
Yager, who has testified that he was with Henderson and Cumberbatch in the hours leading up to the crime, has testified that he is hoping to serve the minimum of one year — an amount of time he already has served.
Yager’s criminal record prior to the killings shows only one previous misdemeanor charge, a conviction for disorderly conduct in 2006.
But on his MySpace page, Yager called his hometown “War City” and “Murderville” and identified himself as “Young Montana,” a reference to one of his favorite movies — “Scarface,” a violent 1983 movie starring Al Pacino as gangster Tony Montana.
Montana is a small-time hood who emigrates from Cuba to the U.S., connects with a Miami gangster and becomes the leader of a cocaine-smuggling empire.
Yager identified some of his other favorite movies as “Shottas,” “Belly,” and “Paid in Full,” which depict drug dealing, wealth and violence.
Detective Wayne Mackey of the Warren Police Department said every generation of young men is exposed to movies, music or other media that glorify violence. Mackey, a musician, thinks of 1970s musician Alice Cooper.
“Kids have always been affected by certain things, but what is important is that the kids are also getting good advice from parents or other adults that balances that,” he said.
Without the proper guidance, sometimes young men don’t understand that movies and music depicting violence are made by people “just telling stories,” he said.