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Robbery victim never found in '77 shooting death
Editor’s note: Throughout 2015, Vindicator crime reporter Joe Gorman will be revisiting some unsolved homicides in Youngstown.
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
It would seem detectives investigating the shooting death of 17-year-old Albert James Reynolds in the parking lot of the former McGuffey Mall on Nov. 21, 1977, had a lot to go on.
There were witnesses who saw the shooting, saw the car the suspect drove away in, mug shots, photo lineups and a description of the car.
Also, the person who shot Reynolds may have been able to claim self-defense and not face any charges.
Yet the last page in the case file reads: “No further leads available at this time. This case is now in the status of ‘pending.’”
Reynolds, who was an East High School student, was killed in what police say was a botched robbery attempt. He was shot by a man who walked out of the Western Auto store at the old McGuffey Plaza, which was still full of stores then.
It was just two months after “Black Monday,” when 5,000 workers lost their jobs at Youngstown Sheet & Tube, kicking off the decline of the local steel industry.
Reynolds was shot on the pavement in front of Fussy Gussy cleaners about 8:07 p.m. and died a short time later at what was then known as St. Elizabeth Hospital. The death was ruled a homicide.
Right away, detectives had a lot of witnesses, including a 16-year-old boy who was interviewed at the police station the next day in the presence of his mother by Detective Mike Richards. The boy told investigators he and Reynolds went to rob a man who walked out of the Western Auto and they demanded money from him.
Instead, the man pulled a gun and fired two shots. Reynolds and his friend ran in separate directions and Reynolds was shot. Police were given a .32-caliber bullet from his head at the hospital that was recovered while he was being treated.
Richards would not return a message seeking comment but he did say through a police spokeswoman that he did not remember the case.
Patrolmen found a lot of witnesses for detectives to talk to at the crime scene. The man who was supposed to be robbed was described as a thin, white man, driving a late ’60s or early ’70s model Pontiac Grand Prix. A security guard who was helping a woman with car trouble at the McGuffey Lanes heard two shots, looked in that direction and saw the car leaving.
A woman who was in her car at the plaza saw the boys approach a man as he left Western Auto, have a short conversation with him, then one of the boys went to the back of the car while the other stood by the driver’s side. The man opened a door, scrunched inside the car then both boys began running, according to the woman. The woman heard gunshots but did not see the man fire the gun.
Another witness was with his wife on the side of Fussy Gussy cleaners and saw a light-skinned man fire two shots, but he could not give a more accurate description. A woman phoned police a few days later and told them she saw a man point a gun and fire it at one of the boys while they were running. A store clerk at Western Auto said he sold a headlight to the man police thought was the shooter right before the robbery attempt.
Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said the shooter could have claimed self-defense had he been found and charged. Under that claim by a defendant, the defendant has a burden to prove he acted in self-defense. However, Gains said that burden is different from the one prosecutors have to convict someone of a crime. Prosecutors must convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed. Under a self-defense claim, a defense needs only to show a preponderance of the evidence that they were acting in self-defense. That is a lesser standard than reasonable doubt.
Even now, if the person was found and charged with murder, he can still claim self-defense, Gains said. If the appropriate charge at the time was murder, there is no statute of limitations. A lesser charge such as manslaughter, however, does have a time limit, and that time limit has since expired, Gains said.
One of the witnesses looked through police mug shots and found five people who matched the description of the shooter, and one of those five, according to the witness, was a close match, a 21-year-old Struthers man who worked at Sheet & Tube.
Richards, according to the case file, went to Struthers to interview the man. He was not home. His wife said the man was at his mother’s on East Boston Avenue, but when Richards went there, the mother said she hadn’t seen her son in several days. Eventually, the man was found and agreed to be interviewed Nov. 28, 1977. He said at the time of the shooting he was home with his wife and stayed there the entire night until the next day. His wife confirmed his whereabouts. He also took a polygraph exam and passed.
The man also stood in a lineup with six other men. The boy who was with Reynolds said the man police were looking at “could be” the person who shot Reynolds. The store clerk, however, said he was “very sure” that the suspect was not the person he sold the headlight to just before the shooting.
The man was let go.
Detective Sgt. John Perdue, who has been on the force for more than 30 years and still investigates homicides, said by law, lineups are no longer used. He said defense attorneys complained about lineups because they did not render accurate identifications. Now, detectives use photo arrays to show to witnesses to help identify suspects. A detective who is not involved in the case often shows the photos, to make it more impartial.
Perdue said he prefers lineups to photo arrays because photos can be out of focus or old or may not show someone’s skin tone or features correctly. He said in a lineup, witnesses can see a person as they really are. He did acknowledge that some lineups were fatally flawed because the suspect would be matched with five or six other people who in no way resembled what they looked like.
Detectives also checked the other five people who were picked out of the mugshots to see if they had a car that matched the one described by witnesses. None of them did.
That was the last activity in the case.