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Police seek clues in Campbell killing
By jeanne starmack
campbell
It makes no sense yet to Campbell police why someone would want to kill James Hills, and it’s unfathomable to his grieving girlfriend as well.
Hills, 47, was walking from girlfriend Lakeisha Perry’s Jean Street apartment to his own Monroe Street apartment around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday when he was shot in the parking lot of the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority’s offices on Jackson Street. Perry’s and Hills’ apartments are in the YMHA Kirwan Homes.
After the shooting, Hills went across the street to an apartment and made his way in looking for help. Police found him there, bleeding profusely on the living room floor.
He was able to tell them that the shooter was “a male with a black hoodie on,” according to a police report, before an ambulance took him to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, where he died.
The Mahoning County Coroner’s Office said Thurs-day he died of gunshot wounds to his back and abdomen.
Campbell Detective Sgt. John Rusnak said Thursday police had no suspects and no motive in the killing.
“We have reports that someone heard arguing in the area,” he said.
Hills had no criminal record, Rusnak said.
He was a Campbell resident “all his life” and worked at a McDonald’s in Austintown, said Perry.
She described Hills as a good man who would do anything for her and her 13-year-old daughter. He had a daughter also that he tried to look out for, she said.
“He was a sweet man,” she said. “He would just go to work and live and try to make it. He didn’t deserve that,” she said.
She said she and Hills were together for two years, and she’d moved from the West Side of Youngstown to be near him.
“I moved all the way out here to be with you,” she said as she grieved at a friend’s apartment Thursday. “Now I’m not going to see you anymore.”
She and that neighbor, who did not want to give her name, said more security is needed at the housing complex, and streetlights behind their units need to be fixed.
Perry said her neighbor was the one who came to tell her Hills had been shot.
“It’s so sad when somebody’s got to knock on your door and tell you — one person can only take so much,” Perry said.