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Homicide ruled in 3 cases in Trumbull
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
It’s been a busy week for investigators with two suspicious deaths in Warren and one in Howland confirmed as homicides.
The deaths were discovered Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Howland police said Friday they have identified the 40-year-old man killed in a home at 3903 Basswood Avenue as Donyell Johnson, originally of Long Beach, Calif. He was found dead Wednesday morning.
The woman who called police on Wednesday saying she feared her boyfriend was dead inside the home told police his name was Martin Reed.
But Howland Police Chief Paul Monroe said Friday his real name is Donyell Johnson, though he said it’s probably true that Johnson had given the woman a different name.
Johnson’s landlord said the victim gave him the name Keith when he moved in to the small, one-story home just north of Warren in December 2010.
The Trumbull County Coroner’s Office was still conducting an autopsy on Johnson’s body Friday afternoon, but Monroe said his department is proceeding with the case as a homicide as it appears to be one.
No arrests have been made in the case, but Howland police “do have a strong suspect in mind,” Monroe said.
When police arrived at the home, they found Johnson’s body and signs that his home had been broken into.
Johnson’s girlfriend told a 911 dispatcher the window in the front door was broken and that there was blood all over the walls in the house.
In a press release, the Howland Police Department said the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Trumbull County Homicide Investigation Squad and the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office are assisting with the investigation.
Meanwhile, the county coroner’s office has ruled the death of Alex Burtt, 11 months, a homicide as a result of scalding.
The boy was dead when police and ambulance personnel arrived at his home on Summit Street Northwest Tuesday afternoon, the coroner’s office said.
Police said the babysitter, Andrew J. Dubos, 21, the boy’s uncle, called 911 at 12:45 p.m. and reported that he doesn’t know how the baby got into a bathtub, where the scalding took place.
Police have interviewed all of the adults involved, including the parents, who were not home at the time.
The Trumbull County Children Services Board was planning to interview the boy’s 3-year-old sibling, the oldest of four siblings at home at the time of the death, police said.
Meanwhile, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled the death of Curtis J. Cutlip, 32, of Leavittsburg, a homicide.
Cutlip was found beaten, face-down and barely breathing on Vine Street Northeast on Sunday afternoon and taken to ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital. He was later flown by helicopter to University Hospitals in Cleveland, where he died Monday.
The two Warren homicides this week bring the city’s total to nine for the year. The city had four in 2010.