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Woman found shot to death in Warren Twp. ID’d
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Police have identified Valerie L. Warren, 42, of Pearl Street Southwest as the woman found dead of a gunshot wound in the parking lot of a closed business on Highland Avenue Southwest.
A newspaper carrier spotted her body face down at 6 a.m. in the darkened parking area Thursday.
Warren Township police believe her death is connected to gunshots heard a little before 11 p.m. Wednesday.
Lt. Don Bishop said his department is treating the death as a homicide. Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, Trumbull County coroner, could not be reached Thursday afternoon regarding Warren’s cause of death.
The business where Warren’s body was found is called JAS Manufacturing, 1710 Highland Ave. SW. It is just south of the Warren city limits and just south of the Highland Terrace apartments.
Bishop said relatives and friends of Warren’s had talked with her “up until the time it happened,” giving detectives what they believe is a good time line of the events leading up to her death.
Friends and family didn’t hear events involving her actual death, Bishop said, and she was not reported missing.
The lieutenant had a news conference Thursday afternoon to identity the victim. It took quite a few hours to identify her, Bishop said. Family members eventually made a positive identification.
Police recovered a shell casing, but they don’t have a suspect, Bishop said.
“Hopefully, something will come up,” Bishop said, adding that anyone with information is asked to call 330-898-2159.
Warren Township police, who have not had a homicide in many years, have received assistance from the Trumbull County Homicide Task Force, including officers from the Howland Police Department and Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office.
Bishop said Warren is known to officers with area police departments.
In addition to many traffic tickets and civil suits involving nonpayment of rent filed against her in Warren Municipal Court, Warren also was charged last August with a felony drug-possession charge.
In December, the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, and she was placed on five years probation.
The night of her drug arrest in a car on Grove Street Northwest, witnesses described her as “very irate and irrational.” She was “flailing her body about in what seemed to be an uncontrollable fashion,” police said. Crack cocaine was found in her car.
Warren was taken that night to Trumbull Memorial Hospital for mental-health issues, police said.
A Farmdale man received a civil stalking protection order against Warren last July while Warren was living on Champion Street East in Champion.