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Luncheon honors victims of crime
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Youngstown Police Detective Sgt. David Lomax was keynote speaker for Help Hotline Crisis Center’s Victims’ Assistance Programs annual luncheon to honor victims of crime. Lomax is a member of YPD’s Family Services Investigative Unit.
BOARDMAN
Donna Wynn said the murder of her son Sept. 2, 1991, left a hole in her family that will never be filled.
“We’ve gone on with our lives and achieved what we wanted to. But we live day to day. People say ‘get over it,’ but you never do,” said Wynn, guest speaker at Help Hotline Crisis Center’s Victims Assistance Program’s annual luncheon to honor victims of crime.
The event was Wednesday at the Holiday Inn.
Theodore and Donna Wynn’s son, Air Force Staff Sgt. Theodore E. Wynn, was 23 when he was murdered. He would be 43 now. He left a son, E. Dozier Wynn, whom he never knew.
He was an Air Force veteran and was a crew chief in the Air Force Reserve stationed at Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna. He was one of four young men shot to death in a house on McGuffey Road on the Youngstown’s East Side.
“My son was very happy. He was athletic and good at what he did. His killers didn’t even know him,” she said.
“It was the darkest day in my family’s life. ... One we will never forget,” said Wynn, who is a preschool teacher with the Mahoning-Youngstown Community Action Partnership’s Head Start program.
She said there were some tough times after her son’s murder.
She said the man eventually convicted of his murder and his associates followed her home after she had picked up a child from school.
“Things were so bad for awhile that my Coitsville police chief told us we should get guns to protect ourselves,” she said.
“I don’t understand where young people are coming from. They seem to have no respect for life,” Wynn said. “We in the city have to get together. Maybe talking to some of the kids can change things.”
Wynn, and a victim of domestic violence, Rachael Phillis of Youngstown, who attended the luncheon, said they received help and support from various organizations.
“I have to give a lot of credit to the Youngstown Police Department. I visited there every day, and they caught the person responsible,” she said.
“The Victims’ Witness Program in the prosecutors office was with us through the trial and even at the young man’s execution. It was something for a woman who you didn’t know to help you. If you are a victim, you are not alone,” Wynn said.
Phillis said she received help from Sojourner House, where she and her children lived for four months, and Beatitude House’s Transitional Housing Program.
She said she is studying medical assisting at Youngstown State University.
Youngstown Police Detective Sgt. David Lomax, keynote speaker, said there weren’t always organizations in place and training to help police deal with domestic-violence cases.
Lomax, formerly with YPD’s Domestic Violence Unit, which evolved into the Family Services Investigative Unit, said when the DVU formed in 1983, it had one detective.
Today, the Family Services Investigative Unit has five investigators plus a lieutenant in charge, a social worker and two specially trained sexual-assault investigators.
Also, the unit has access to a rape counselor and an advocate who walks victims through the judicial system.
When there are crimes against young people, the unit can call on the Child Advocacy Center and Mahoning County Children Services Board, who know how to talk to children, he said.
“We have to change the attitude of society toward sexual violence,” Lomax said.
“Society still has the mentality that a rapist is a stranger that jumps out from behind a bush. The reality is, most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows.”