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Prosecutors can’t get witnesses to appear; murder charges dismissed
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A lack of key witnesses was the main reason murder charges were dismissed against two men accused of a 2012 double homicide on the East Side.
Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday dismissed charges of aggravated murder against Willie Daniel Jr., 19, and Tijuan Muldrow, 20.
The case was set to begin with jury selection Monday, but Judge Sweeney granted a request by prosecutors to continue the case until Wednesday so they could find the witnesses. The witnesses still could not be found Wednesday, and the judge refused a second request for a continuance and dismissed the charges.
The charges can be refiled at a later date, said Assistant Prosecutor Rob Andrews.
Daniel and Muldrow are accused of the June 1, 2012, shooting deaths of 20-year-old Ibn Shakoor of Katherine Street and Michael Johnson, also 20, of McBride Street.
Johnson and Shakoor were shot to death as they were sitting in Shakoor’s SUV listening to music. A third man also was in the SUV but was not injured.
Police said Muldrow and Daniel were looking for another man who drove the same type of SUV, and they killed Shakoor and Johnson in a case of mistaken identity. Muldrow and Daniel were not indicted by a grand jury until May 2014.
Police found no evidence Shakoor or Johnson were involved in any criminal activity at the time they were killed. Neither man had a substantial criminal record.
Detectives said it took so long to get an indictment in the case because they were having trouble getting witnesses to come forward. John Shultz, Muldrow’s lawyer, said those witnesses all lied to police to get charges against them in other cases dropped. He said having the charges dismissed was the right decision.
“We believe the unavailability of witnesses demonstrates the weakness of the allegations against the defendant,” Shultz said. “Those alleged witnesses utilized the opportunities that were presented to them in this case to negotiate better deals in all of their respective criminal cases by falsely accusing these two defendants of these crimes.”
Last week, Daniel pleaded guilty before Judge Sweeney for his role in an unrelated shooting, also in 2012 on the East Side, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.