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Body found in East Side parking lot
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police are calling suspicious the death of a man who was found Thursday at the edge of a gravel parking lot.
The man was found about 1:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the Progressive Club at Forest and Himrod avenues.
Lt. Doug Bobovnyik of the detective bureau said the man appeared to be in his 40s and is white. He said the man was found lying face down by a passer-by, who then called police.
The man did not have identification, Bobovnyik said.
Bobovnyik said detectives and coroner’s investigators are not sure how long the man had been outside before he was found. His shoes were found about a hundred feet away from his body, and his pants were slightly down.
An autopsy will have to be performed to find out how he died. There were no obvious signs of foul play when the body was given a cursory look by investigators, Bobovnyik said.
Detectives and crime scene personnel scoured the gravel parking lot for clues and marked several spots in the gravel where it appeared there were scuff marks. There was no evidence of any weapon being used.
One of the men who found the body said he had seen it earlier in the day and thought it was a discarded mattress or other piece of furniture. He rode up for a closer look in a friend’s car, and when he saw it was a body, he called police. The man did not want to give his name.
If the death is ruled a homicide, it would be the 19th in the city this year and the first since Nov. 6, when a Masury man was found shot to death early in the morning in the parking lot of the Four Seasons Flea Market on McCartney Road.
In 2015, Youngstown recorded 23 homicides.