Family, friends mourn loss of smart, quiet, funny young man

By JEANNE STARMACK

starmack@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Hot wax dropped like tears onto the cold, damp ground a few feet away from the spot where Pierre McKinney took his last breath.

The droplets fell from a white taper that Brittany Thomas, the mother of McKinney’s 4-year-old daughter, was tilting sideways.

Half-way around the circle of about 60 people, all family and friends gathered Saturday evening to remember McKinney, was his 6-year-old son, Tion. Not far from Tion, clutching her own candle, was McKinney’s fiancee, Carrie Spires.

At the crowd’s feet was a simple remembrance — a white vase holding red flowers. On the side of the vase were the words, “Pierre McKinney, we love you.”

McKinney, 21, died Wednesday afternoon, shot in his car in the driveway of a house on Saranac Avenue on the North Side. He had just arrived at the house to pick up Spires’ son when two men in another car pulled across the bottom of the drive and opened fire on him.

Police believe he was shot as revenge for a fist fight that had taken place earlier in the day.

McKinney was, remembered his uncle, Charles Bell, thoughtful, energetic and smart.

“He was quiet, laid-back, and kept you laughing,” said his cousin, Tamika Jones. He was planning the next phase of his life, she said. He had enrolled in college and was going to study business management. He and Spires were to be married on his birthday, June 5.

“Pierre loved his family; that’s all he cared about,” Spires told the group, her face wet with tears and contorted by grief.

For the complete story, read Sunday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.