Man, 19, indicted in store owner's death

YOUNGSTOWN — A man police say killed a South Side store owner in an exchange of gunfire last month was indicted on aggravated murder charges Thursday by a Mahoning County grand jury.

Larry McDonald, 19, faces charges of aggravated murder and murder in the Nov. 19 killing of 29-year-old Abdullah Nagi Mahdi at Reema’s Fashions store at 2608 South Ave.

McDonald also faces a charge of aggravated robbery in that incident, and for robbing another Reema’s Fashions store Mahdi owned on Belmont Avenue on Nov. 18.

Additionally, he faces two counts of carrying a concealed weapon, and all the charges carry a specification that a firearm was used to commit the crimes.

Police say McDonald walked into the South Avenue store about 4:30 p.m., and employees were suspicious because he was acting like the person who had robbed the Belmont Avenue store the day before. They alerted Mahdi, who grabbed a gun he kept in the store, and at some point the two shot at one another.

Mahdi was shot in the head and killed, and McDonald was hit twice in the stomach. He was hospitalized for several days before being transferred to the county jail from St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

He was arraigned in municipal court on the Belmont Avenue robbery and has been held in the jail on $1 million since his arraignment there.