Police: Teen was arguing when she was killed

By Ed Runyan | July 17, 2012 at 12:03a.m.

WARREN

Police say 17-year-old Zeboney A. Bess was arguing with someone Saturday night when she was hit by the gunfire that killed her.

The person who called 911 told police she heard arguing and then heard a gunshot coming from a dark car, then saw a woman lying on the road. The car drove away.

Bess was found on the road with a head wound at 2057 Hamilton Street Southwest at 10:05 p.m. and taken to ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital and then to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, where she died.

Bess lived at 2520 Kenwood St. NW, about a half-mile south of the location where she was shot, which is near the former Warren Western Reserve High School.

Sgt. Jeff Cole, spokesman for the Warren Police Department, said investigators are talking to witnesses, but there were no suspects in custody as of Monday afternoon.

Cole said he was unable to confirm information in a police report that a bystander at Trumbull Memorial indicated that Bess had been having problems with an ex-boyfriend.

If Bess’ death is ruled a homicide, it would be the third one in less than a week with a connection to the south side of Warren.

The city had only one homicide during the first six months of the year, but at 1 a.m. July 9, four masked men ordered a woman at gunpoint to stand on the front porch of a home on Charles Avenue Southeast where Delshawn Scott, 36, was staying and then rang the doorbell and fired assault rifles at Scott, killing him.

The day before that, Jamaul R. Jones, 28, of Burton Street Southeast disappeared after he went to a house at 1322 Meadowbrook Ave. SE, Cole said.

Jones was found shot to death several days later in a vacant lot on Dover Avenue Southeast just south of Warren in Warren Township.

Cole said investigators believe Jones’ death might be drug-related, but they don’t believe at this time that his death and that of Scott are related.