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A Campbell man is murdered in what appears to be a drug deal gone bad
YOUNGSTOWN
A drug deal gone bad appears to be the reason behind the slaying of a 34-year-old Campbell man on the city’s North Side, police said.
Brendon Moorer, of Robinson Road, is the victim, killed by a gunshot wound to the head late Saturday, said Lt. Douglas Bobovnyik of the police department’s detective bureau.
Moorer was in the passenger seat of a friend’s car when they stopped on Tod Lane to pick up another man, whom Moorer knew, for a drug sale, Bobovnyik said.
Police aren’t sure what happened next, but the man who was picked up shot and killed Moorer, got out of the car and fled on foot on Tod Lane toward Kensington Avenue.
“It appears to be a drug deal gone bad,” Bobovnyik said. “That’s the information we have now.”
The driver, who said he doesn’t know the shooter, “was in a panic” and drove to the Big Apple supermarket at 1108 McGuffey Road, near Albert Street on the city’s East Side, Bobovnyik said.
That’s about 1.5 miles from the crime scene.
“That’s quite a distance,” Bobovnyik said.
The driver ran inside the store, telling employees to call the police about his friend being shot, Bobovnyik said.
The police received the call at 11:58 p.m. Saturday, and found Moorer dead in the car.
The suspect is unidentified.
Moorer had an extensive criminal record involving arrests on drug charges, according to information on the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court’s website.
Moorer pleaded guilty in July 2012 to three counts of trafficking in cocaine, and a count each of possession of cocaine, possession of heroin and possession of drugs, all felonies, according to a court document. He was sentenced in August 2012 to two years in prison.
But he served about nine months, with Judge Lou D’Apolito, who sentenced him, agreeing to let Moorer out of prison in April 2013, according to another court document. The judge required Moorer to be placed on community control for three years, monitored by the Adult Parole Authority. Moorer also was required to submit to random drug tests and complete a day-reporting program at Community Corrections Association.
This is the third homicide in the city this year. The other two happened on consecutive days — March 31 and April 1, both on the city’s South Side.