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Youngstown man found dead in High Street house
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police are treating the death of a man whose body was found in a South Side home Thursday morning as a homicide.
Chief of Detectives Brad Blackburn said the man was found about 8:15 a.m. by a family member at a house at 807 High St. and had died from a gunshot wound. He would not release the man’s name, saying all of his family had not yet been notified of his death.
If ruled a homicide by the Mahoning County Coroner’s office, the death would be the 23rd homicide of the year in the city and the seventh within a month, four of which police have solved.
In 2014, Youngstown had 19 homicides.
Several family members declined to speak to a reporter as they gathered outside the man’s home but they arrived steadily throughout the morning, including a woman who drove a car with a tire almost flat. She was shivering and crying in the cold.
Most of those assembled were comforting the woman who found the body, who, when she was not talking to police, was inside her van on a cellphone, rocking back and forth and sobbing in the driver’s seat. She also had a small child with her. She later gave the child to a friend or relative who drove the child away.
Blackburn said investigators still are not sure if someone forced their way inside the home or not.
“That’s too early to determine,” Blackburn said.
Crime-scene personnel mostly worked inside the home except for a check of the front porch.
As the later afternoon hours came to a close, Blackburn said there was no further information.
Of the homicides this year, 15 have been solved. Three of those deaths that were solved came from one incident, a March 30 arson on Powers Way. A man has been charged in the deaths of those three people.