Chevy used by homicide victim is burned

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Arriving firefighters found a car that had been driven by the city’s latest homicide victim engulfed in flames.

The car, set ablaze early Friday on the city’s South Side, has been impounded by police as evidence.

The blue, four-door 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, which had been driven by Andre Whitlor, had been parked at Judson Avenue and Garden Road, where firefighters found it at 3:55 a.m. The car had a front license plate but no rear plate.

The gold wheel rims and grill were still on the vehicle, but the fire gutted its interior, said Fire Capt. Alvin Ware, chief fire investigator. The fire department estimated the property loss at $1,000.

Whitlor’s friends, who hadn’t heard from him since Tuesday, went to his residence at 2632 Hunter Ave. on Thursday morning, looked through a window, saw furniture tipped over, entered the house and found him on his dining-room floor fatally shot in the head.

The Mahoning County coroner’s office ruled his death a homicide, saying Whitlor, 27, died of at least one gunshot wound.

Witnesses at the death scene told police the car, which was owned by Whitlor’s father, was missing from the garage, and police filed a stolen-car report Thursday.

Capt. Rod Foley, chief of detectives, estimated that Whitlor had been dead for at least 24 hours before police arrived at his house Thursday morning.