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Trumbull County grand jury indicts two men on murder charges
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
On July 9, 2012, authorities already were searching for Lamont Salter, 25, of Warren, in connection with a May 2012 robbery involving weapons when he is purported to have participated in the execution of a Detroit man on Charles Street Southeast.
Salter, now in prison after being convicted of the robbery, was indicted Friday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on aggravated murder, kidnapping and weapons charges in connection with the murder.
The victim was Delshawn Scott, 36, a Detroit native with a Detroit prison record for armed robbery who was living on Scott Street when he was killed by four men wearing masks.
Police at the time said Scott’s murder appeared to be drug-related. It was also one of several incidents that occurred in Warren over the next several months with Detroit connections, culminating in the Nov. 11, 2012, shootout near downtown Warren that killed Warren native Marco Dukes, 32, and injured his cousin.
Two Detroit men, Dale Hatch, 27, and Derrick Peete, 23, were eventually charged in the Dukes killing, and nearly 100 people were indicted the following spring in a drugs and weapons investigation they called “Little D-Town” because of the Detroit connections they found in Warren.
A terrified woman told police she was used as bait for the four masked men who killed Scott. The men kidnapped her at 1 a.m. while she was visiting in the neighborhood and was ordered at gunpoint to knock on Scott’s door.
When Scott answered, he was shot to death. Police found 11 bullet holes in the front door where the shots were fired from one or more assault rifles. The woman described the four men as having “big guns.”
Lt. Jeff Cole of the Warren Police Department said Friday police had gathered evidence on Salter during the investigation of Scott’s death and had turned it over to prosecutors, but further DNA evidence was needed before prosecutors were ready to proceed.
Meanwhile, the same grand jury also indicted North Bloomfield man William Helmuth, 45, on a murder charge in the Jan. 16 slaying of Craig Neighbor, 41, of Bristolville.
Neighbor died after Helmuth and Neighbor argued inside the Bristol Inn tavern in Bristolville, resulting in Neighbor’s being stabbed. Helmuth was arrested about 45 minutes later.
Also indicted Friday on charges of felonious assault, kidnapping and possession of a deadly weapon while under detention is Ohio prison inmate Jamie Ayers, 34, who was convicted of a 1997 Youngstown murder.
Ayers, of Youngstown, who was convicted of killing Richard Johnson, 35, when Ayers was 18, is accused of trying to injure a female corrections officer at Trumbull Correctional Institute Nov. 23, 2013, by using a homemade knife, according to his indictment. The charges could add 30 years to his prison sentence.
Also indicted on a charge of aggravated robbery with a firearm were Derrick L. Bennett, 20, of Third Street Southwest, and Omar S. Williams, 19, of Surfwood Circle Southwest. Police said Bennett and Williams robbed the Subway restaurant on Parkman Road Northwest Nov. 24, 2013, with Bennett threatening an employee with a gun.
Brady Mowery, 24, of Howland-Wilson Road in Howland, was indicted on an aggravated robbery charge in connection with the Nov. 19 armed robbery of the BP gas station on Niles-Cortland Road.