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Murder victim’s mom tells court of daughter’s volatile relationship
Photo
Tracee Banks, 17, poses for an undated photo with her mother, Tracee Hewlett. It was posted on Hewlett’s Facebook page. Melvin Shaw is on trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in the slaying of Banks in 2010.
YOUNGSTOWN
The mother of a murdered 17-year-old girl said her daughter was involved in a volatile relationship with the man charged in her death for months before she was gunned down.
Tracee Hewlett, mother of Tracee Banks, who was killed at a West Side home in 2010, took the stand Wednesday before a jury of six men and six women to talk about the daughter she lost two years ago.
Seated across the courtroom was Melvin S. Shaw II, 20, of Idlewood Avenue, who is charged with the aggravated murder of Banks and attempted murder of Jamel Turner, 18, of Youngstown. Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court is presiding over the trial.
Hewlett was the first state’s witness called to the stand. The 40-year-old mother of four told the jurors about the last time she spoke with her daughter before she was killed. She also said her daughter wanted to enter a profession where she could help people or animals, such as a nurse or veterinarian.
Hewlett told the court her daughter had been dating Shaw for about nine months before the shooting. She said it was a rocky nine months with a lot of fighting and constant breakups between the two.
Natasha Frenchko, an assistant county prosecutor, told jurors that volatile relationship came to an end in June 2010 when Shaw walked onto the porch of Banks’ cousin’s Manchester Avenue home and shot the young woman at least four times as she sat in the living room of the house.
“The evidence will show that the defendant Melvin Shaw is a violent, dangerous man. ... He shot and killed Tracee Banks and almost killed Jamel Turner,” she told jurors during opening statements.
Frenchko said Banks and Shaw had been hanging out together earlier that day. Shaw dropped off Banks to baby-sit after the couple had argued. The argument, she said, continued over the phone after Turner, a lifelong friend of Banks’, came to the West Side home to visit.
Frenchko said Shaw, at some point, returned to the home firing several shots into the house. Both Banks and Turner saw him standing outside just before the shots were fired, she said.
Prosecutors said gunshot residue also was found on Shaw’s hands after the shooting.
Atty. Thomas E. Zena, representing Shaw, told jurors the case against his client is completely unreliable. He said Turner’s identification of Shaw as the shooter is unreliable as well as the gunshot residue police found on Shaw’s hands.
Zena said Shaw has been completely cooperative with police since he was first questioned and subsequently arrested.
“Melvin Shaw did not, in any way, conduct himself as a guilty person. He is not a guilty person,” said Zena.
Members of the Banks and Shaw families sat in on Wednesday’s court proceedings, but there were no outbursts or disruptions. When Shaw first appeared in Youngstown Municipal Court, a large fight between the families took place in the hallway outside the court.