Tuesday, July 22, 2014
YOUNGSTOWN
The mother of a 17-year-old murder victim told Judge Maureen Sweeney Tuesday during sentencing for the man convicted of killing her son that life was good before her son was killed in 2011.
“Three years ago today, I had a nice little family,” Marcia Watkins said in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court during the sentencing hearing for Lamar Reese. “We had a lot going for us in our life.”
But since the death of her son, 17-year-old Josh Davis, Watkins said that has all been shattered.
“I’ve been having a very hard time with this,” Watkins said.
Reese, 21, of Worthington Street, was sentenced to 33 years to life in prison on charges of aggravated robbery, aggravated murder and a firearm specification. He was convicted April 21 in the Sept. 16, 2011, shooting of Josh Davis. Police say Davis was killed on a Willis Avenue front porch as Reese and co-defendant Frankie Hudson, 21, were trying to rob Davis of marijuana he was selling.
Davis was hit by four bullets and shot by two different guns, police said.
Police were stymied in their investigation until the indictment of several members of the H Block street gang, based on the South Side, in September 2012. The investigation then picked up speed as gang members in custody began cooperating with police.
Read more of the case in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.