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Police await ID of man’s body in Warren Twp.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Warren Township police are not ruling out the possibility that the body that was found in a vacant lot on Dover Avenue Southwest Wednesday night is that of a 28-year-old Warren man reported missing Monday.
Lt. Don Bishop of the Warren Township Police Department said a neighbor and her dog discovered the body at 9 p.m. Wednesday after the woman noticed a smell coming from the lot near her house.
Bishop said it’s not clear whether the man was shot to death, but it’s also a possibility. The black male was wearing only underwear, and his body was badly decomposed.
Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, Trumbull County coroner, will conduct an autopsy on the body today in Cleveland, where the body was taken because of its decomposed state, Bishop said.
Based on the autopsy and dental records, Bishop said he is hopeful the man’s identity will be determined today.
Bishop said it’s possible that the body is that of Jamaul R. Jones of Burton Street Southeast, whose family reported him missing after he disappeared Sunday. Police did observe a tattoo on the body that might help with identification.
Roderick Lewis of Warren, a cousin of Jones’, said Jones went to an unknown house on Meadowbrook Avenue Southeast on Sunday and hadn’t been heard from since.
Lewis said he was concerned because he talks to his cousin every day and was unable to reach him since Sunday.
Bishop said there are no current missing persons from Warren Township, but he quickly learned Wednesday night that Jones was missing because someone arrived at the site where the body was found and showed police a flier with Jones’ picture on it and telling about his disappearance.
A Warren police officer also came to the scene with information on Jones, Bishop said, adding that Warren Township and the Warren city police will be working together on the case.
Dover Avenue is five streets south of the Warren city limits and a short distance south of Warren Township’s other homicide of 2012.
The body of Valerie L. Warren, 42, of Warren, was found near the intersection of Seventh Street and Highland Avenue Southwest early April 5 by a newspaper carrier. Warren had been shot to death in the head and neck, most likely about 11 p.m. April 4, police said.
In both cases, the bodies were found in fairly remote, low-income areas.
That investigation into the Valerie Warren homicide continues, Bishop said, with telephone records holding up the case.
Police are still trying to secure telephone records for a person of interest, Bishop said.