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Man pleads in 2009 murder just after trial begins
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who was set to go on trial for a 2009 murder apparently changed his mind and pleaded guilty just after opening statements in his trial began Wednesday.
Brandon Clinkscale, 29, entered an Alford Plea to charges of involuntary manslaughter, discharging a firearm into a habitation, felonious assault and a gun specification in the Feb. 21, 2010, shooting death of Melkanoe Bowman and the wounding of a 6-year-old in the 900 block of Delaware Avenue.
Sentencing is set for 10 a.m. today. Clinkscale is expected to receive a sentence of six years in prison.
An Alford Plea is a type of plea in which a defendant maintains innocence but admits that if the case goes to trial, there is enough evidence for a jury to convict.
Clinkscale’s change of heart came after attorneys spent all of Tuesday choosing a jury before Judge John Durkin in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
In opening statements, Assistant Prosecutor Meghan Brundege told jurors that a witness was inside a Delaware Avenue home to buy methadone pills when he looked outside and saw five men with guns, one of them Clinkscale. Bowman and two other men were inside the home with the witness, Brundege said.
Brundege said the men began firing at the home, and Bowman ran upstairs. The witness and the other two men ran away from the home to another house on Delaware and from there, drove out of the neighborhood.
Bowman was shot dead in an upstairs bedroom.
The 6-year-old boy was sleeping across the street when he was shot in the foot, Brundege said. Brundege said when Clinkscale was arrested, he had a 0.40-caliber handgun, and shell casings collected at the crime scene matched his gun.
Clinkscale’s lawyer, Tony Meranto, said the house Bowman was found in was “an Iraq-like scene.” Inside were 573 rounds of ammunition, body armor and eight weapons, including handguns and assault rifles. He said Bowman was found lying on top of a gun and was wearing a bullet-proof vest when he was killed by a shot to the head.
Meranto said Bowman was shot dead with a 9mm round, and none of the casings found at the shooting scene was 9mm.
Reports said Bowman was killed because of a feud he was having with Clinkscale and the other three men charged in his death — Ryan McGee, 27, Keilan Clinkscale, 25, and Charles Richardson, 30.
Of the three others charged in Bowman’s death, charges were dropped against McGee because of a ruling on evidence in 2012 and also Richardson, whose indictment was dismissed, according to court records.
Richardson, in fact, was to be the witness who brought the pills and saw the shooting.
Keilan Clinkscale pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and was sentenced to six years in prison for the Bowman murder and another homicide.