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Second suspect in West Myrtle homicide caught
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
U.S. marshals Wednesday caught the second suspect wanted in a Nov. 14 homicide.
Jawonn Hymes, 25, was found about 9 a.m. by marshals and returned to Youngstown, said Lt. Douglas Bobovnyik of the Detective Bureau.
Hymes faces three counts of attempted aggravated murder and a single count of aggravated murder in connection with the death of Thomas Owens, 33, of Burbank Avenue.
Owens was sitting in a parked car with three other people about 12:20 a.m. in the 500 block of West Myrtle Avenue when the car was riddled by gunfire. Owens took a bullet to the back of the head and was killed.
Jason Heard, 19, was taken into custody Friday in Owens’ death. He is in the Mahoning County jail on $300,000 bond.
Bobovnyik said detectives are still trying to piece together the circumstances that led to the shooting. But he did say that investigators have learned that the group of people Owens was with, and a group of people the suspects were with, were each at the same location earlier in the evening before the shooting.
When Heard was arraigned in municipal court, city Prosecutor Dana Lantz said Heard could be seen on video leaving a bar and getting into a car with a gun in his hand – the same kind of car that police believed was used in the shooting of Owens.
One of the men in the car with Owens, Tony Brown, 34, was shot and killed Nov. 17 as he stood outside the Southern Tavern on Glenwood Avenue. Five others also were wounded.
The man charged in that shooting, Daniel Harris, 36, blamed Brown for having something to do with the death of Owens, investigators said. However, detectives believe that Brown had nothing to do with the slaying of Owens. Harris was indicted by a Mahoning County grand jury Thursday in the death of Owens and the wounding of the other four people.