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Life beyond tragedy: Victim’s organs to aid others
YOUNGSTOWN
Though teary-eyed when talking about her 20-year-old daughter who died Thursday, Melissa Floyd can take some solace.
As family members realized Melesia Day might not recover from a shooting last week, they wanted something good to come out of tragedy. They decided to identify recipients for her body organs.
Floyd said one of Melesia’s 38-year-old aunts, Tessia Day, has been on an organ-donation list to receive a kidney for a considerable time. The aunt went to Cleveland Clinic on Thursday to prepare for the transplant.
Day was considered a universal donor, Floyd said, and three others will have their lives extended thanks to her organ donation.
“Through this one tragedy, my daughter has been able to save four lives. My daughter will live on through four other people,” she said.
Police said Day’s estranged boyfriend, Patrell Scott, 21, of Park Vista Drive, shot her in the neck June 23 at Day’s home on Tyrell Street on the West Side. Day survived for six days in St. Elizabeth Health Center.
Scott initially was charged with felonious assault, but authorities said that charge likely will be changed to murder.
If the Mahoning County coroner rules the death a homicide, it will be the city’s seventh this year. There were 13 homicides at this time in 2010.
Scott, who has a 3-year-old daughter with Day, was arraigned last week before Judge Robert Milich of Youngstown Municipal Court on the assault charge. He is in Mahoning County jail on a $55,000 bond. He appeared for a preliminary hearing Thursday afternoon before Judge Milich, but he waived that hearing, allowing the assault charge, and possibly additional charges, to be heard by a county grand jury.
Police reports show there was a pattern of abuse in the Day-Scott relationship.
Officers were sent to the Tyrell Avenue address in January, where they found Day crying and holding the right side of her jaw. According to the reports, she told police Scott became angry and hit her in the head several times because she did not want to be intimate with him.
In August 2010, police went to a South Side location in regard to an altercation between Scott and Day. At that time, Day told police Scott slapped her in the face after a disagreement about their child.
Family members added that Day had forgiven Scott for numerous issues in their relationship.
Thomas Day III, Melesia’s brother, said he has a message for anyone involved in an abusive relationship.
“If you are in an abusive relationship, get out of it now. It does not get any better,” he said. “I am so mad, and so sad, right now. I would not wish this on anyone.”
Scott also has a long criminal record.
He had been charged with carrying a concealed weapon in 2008. Later, under a plea agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to attempted improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle.
Judge Maureen Sweeney of common pleas court in 2009 sentenced him to two years’ probation and ordered him to serve 50 hours of community service at the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley on the gun charge. He is scheduled for a probation-violation hearing before Judge Sweeney on July 22.
Scott also has an arrest for misconduct at an emergency for preventing paramedics from assisting a man injured in a car accident. Police also cited him for having loud music in a motor vehicle in 2008 and, as a juvenile, authorities charged him with drug possession.
The family has set up a fund to help to cover burial expenses and the cost of raising the girl. Contributions to the “Benefit Account for Melesia Day” can be made at any area Huntington Bank, family members said.