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Killer sought in '95 New Year's Eve double slaying
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
City police Detective Sgt. Jose Morales and Steven White both had plans for ringing in 1996.
Neither of them were able to follow through, however, because White was killed on New Year’s Eve, and Morales was called to investigate his death.
The deaths of White, who was in his 20s, and Mary Jones, 18, inside Jones’ 1360 Wright Drive apartment on Dec. 31, 1995, gave the city 68 homicides for the year — the most murders in Youngstown in one year.
Morales, who now works in the Internal Affairs Division, said he and his family were getting ready to ring in the year by attending Mass when he got the call to investigate the murders.
He never made it to church.
“I was there for about three hours,” Morales said.
The pair were discovered about 8:20 p.m. by Jones’ roommate. White was from Dayton but was staying with Jones while he was in town. He had told people he had planned to go to the Class Act II bar on Garland Avenue, and he was dressed to go out when he was found.
In fact, Jones’ roommate had seen White about 15 minutes before she discovered his body and that of Jones, when White walked to a nearby apartment to look for a friend. The friend was not there so White came back. The roommate told police she heard gunshots, but there was so much gunfire in the neighborhood at the time that no one paid attention.
Jones was found downstairs, shot in the face and head. White was found in an upstairs bedroom. There were 10 .380-caliber shell casings scattered around his body and during the autopsy, four .380-caliber slugs were found.
Morales said there was no sign of forced entry and the apartment wasn’t ransacked.
“We felt it was somebody they knew,” Morales said. “There was something they wanted to get.”
He said the fact both were shot multiple times meant that whoever killed them wanted to make sure they were dead and there were no witnesses. Morales said that is another clue that whoever committed the murders was someone they knew.
Morales said he thinks the two cooperated with whoever killed them because of the lack of signs of any kind of a struggle. The shell casings collected at the scene did not match those from any other killings at the time. The casings were about the only physical evidence at the crime scene.
Morales also said because the victims were separated and found in different areas of the house, he thinks at least two people were involved.
One person detectives were looking for was a man from the Community Corrections Association who was on probation, who had dropped Jones off at her apartment shortly before they were killed. Morales said the man was not a suspect because he already was back at CCA when detectives believe the killings occurred, but he wanted to question him to see if he saw anything out of the ordinary when he dropped Jones off.
That’s about when the case began to grow cold, Morales said. Because of the high number of killings and other shootings, once leads ran out on a case, detectives often went on to the next one, Morales said. “We were getting cases left and right back then,” Morales said.
Despite the scarcity of evidence at the crime scene, Morales said he was not discouraged right away. He said it is not uncommon to have almost no physical evidence at a homicide but a lot of times, people will call in with tips within a couple of days, and those tips can sometimes give investigators leads they can use.
Morales said while most homicides are tough to solve, a homicide with multiple victims is often easier because multiple victims mean more people knew them, which can lead to more information about their whereabouts and possible motives. But in this case, there was not a lot of information, he said.
Morales said what stands out most to him in this case is that neither victim was known to the police.
During the 1990s, especially the mid-’90s, when the city’s homicide rate was high, most victims had some sort of connection to drug or other criminal activity. But he said as far as he knew neither Jones nor White were part of any of those circles.
Anyone with information on the case can call the Detective Bureau at 330-742-8911.