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Employee recounts slaying of Youngstown store owner
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Mahdi
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McDonald
RELATED: Store owner remembered as kind, giving person
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
As he lay dying on the floor of his South Avenue store Wednesday from a bullet to the head, Abdullah Nagi Mahdi was able to pray to God one last time.
Sana Hamayel said she knelt next to the 29-year-old Mahdi and helped him to say, “Allah is the highest,” just before police and paramedics arrived at his 2068 South Ave. business.
Mahdi, who had been shot by a robber during an exchange of gunfire, later died.
“I did have a chance to do that,” Hamayel said. “I prayed with him.”
As Hamayel was praying with Mahdi on the floor, others were on top of the man suspected of shooting him, 19-year-old Larry McDonald, trying to hold him until police arrived.
Police said McDonald was wounded by Mahdi just before Mahdi took a bullet from McDonald’s gun.
When she was done praying, Hamayel, who worked in the store for Mahdi, yelled at McDonald.
“I couldn’t curse him,” she said Thursday inside the store, as another woman knelt on the floor where Mahdi had fallen and wept loudly. “I gave him a lecture: ‘Do you know who you took away from us?’ This whole community lost a wonderful person.”
McDonald is recovering at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital. He is expected to be charged in Mahdi’s death when he is discharged.
Mahdi was a graduate of Youngstown State University and leaves behind seven daughters, the oldest being 14.
Hamayel said she had worked at a store on Belmont Avenue that Mahdi had owned. But after it was robbed recently, he moved her to the South Avenue store. She said she was in the store Wednesday and had left, but came back after 4 p.m. She said that shortly after she returned, McDonald came in the store and said he had $200 to spend.
Hamayel said she paid attention to that remark because the person who robbed the Belmont Avenue store said the same thing.
So, she told a customer in Arabic to check McDonald’s pockets to see if he had a gun. At the same time, she said, Mahdi was putting a gun he had into his pocket.
She said Mahdi then walked over to McDonald and offered to help him. McDonald told Mahdi that he was there to spend money, and he pulled the money out of his pocket. Mahdi said, “No problem.”
With Mahdi facing the door, the shooting then began.
Hamayel said Mahdi was shot but he still managed to get a round off and hit McDonald. McDonald continued shooting as she crawled on the floor, before he was tackled and held down by another person in the store.
Hamayel said she had known Mahdi for years and that his death is a big loss. She said Mahdi always tried to help people who came into his stores.
“He does everything for everyone,” Hamayel said.
Hamayel and another employee who was at the store Thursday, Saleh Musaid, said Mahdi was a pleasure to work for.
“He’s not a boss. He’s a brother,” Musaid said.