43
Woman ID’d St. Dom shooter, detective says
Photo
Jamar Houser
YOUNGSTOWN
A woman driving west on Lucius Avenue around the time Angeline Fimognari was fatally shot outside St. Dominic Church identified Jamar Houser as the man she saw running from the church parking lot, a detective said.
“She said she was very positive, 100 percent positive,” about the identification, Detective Ronald Rodway testified during a Friday pretrial evidentiary hearing before Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Rodway said the woman picked Houser, 20, of Volney Road, out of a photo lineup of six mug shots on Feb. 3, 2010, five days after Houser’s arrest.
Houser, who faces the death penalty if convicted, is charged with robbing and killing Fimognari, 80, of Sheridan Road, in the church parking lot after Fimognari attended an 8 a.m. Mass on Jan. 23, 2010.
The city police detective was the only witness Friday, and the hearing will resume at 9 a.m. Monday.
The hearing concerns a defense motion to exclude from evidence the woman’s identification of Houser on the grounds that the detective’s presentation of the photo lineup to her was unduly suggestive.
Under questioning by Rebecca Doherty, an assistant county prosecutor, Rodway said the woman had been arrested and jailed Jan. 29, 2010, the same day as Houser, on a minor charge that was unrelated to the homicide.
The witness, who was jailed until Feb. 1, said she saw no TV or newspaper coverage concerning the homicide while she was jailed, Rodway testified.
Rodway said the witness had told him on Jan. 24 that she saw the suspect run from the church parking lot, cross Lucius in front of her and continue running west on Lucius at about 8:45 a.m. Jan. 23.
She described him as a black man, about 6 feet tall, weighing between 160 and 175 pounds, with a medium complexion and a short haircut, wearing a black shirt and an open jacket.
She said he held up his gray jeans with his right hand and kept his left hand in his pants pocket as he ran, Rodway recalled.
During cross examination by defense lawyer John Juhasz, Rodway acknowledged that Houser’s face appears larger than the other five faces in the photo lineup, that he did not record a statement from the witness on video and that he never asked the witness how long she was able to see the face of the man she saw running.
Fuzzy church surveillance video showed someone standing by the church’s back door at 8:45:33 a.m. on the morning of the slaying wearing a dark jacket with a diamond pattern, but that person’s face is not visible in that image, Rodway testified.
Other surveillance photos showed Fimognari walking to her car and then her car in the parking lot with a door open, Rodway said.