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Warren police: Man’s story about girlfriend’s shooting ‘didn’t add up’
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Though Shaun R. Simpson Sr. blamed another man for the shooting that killed his girlfriend Nov. 12, police now say Simpson’s version of events didn’t add up.
Simpson, 23, dropped off Becky L. Pyne, 22, at the curb of ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital at 11:13 p.m. that night with at least one gunshot wound and left, police said.
He spoke to police later and told them Pyne, the mother of his small child, had been shot by another man outside of the home on South Leavitt Road where they lived.
But he gave police a vague description of the location of the home, even though it is just across the railroad tracks from the well-known Diles Market and Cafe in Leavittsburg.
Police found the shooting scene more than an hour later by looking through the home’s window, said Capt. Rob Massucci of the Warren Police Department. Police determined the shooting occurred inside the house.
“Once we started adding things up, it didn’t add up,” Massucci said of Simpson’s story, declining to discuss other specifics.
Simpson told police the reason he didn’t stay at the hospital with Pyne was because he had his child in the car and needed to drop off the child.
Simpson was arraigned Tuesday in Warren Municipal Court on a murder charge in Pyne’s death. Judge Thomas Gysegem entered a not-guilty plea for Simpson and ordered he remain in the Trumbull County jail until his next hearing at 1:30 p.m. next Thursday.
Simpson is not eligible to make bond, the judge said, because Simpson’s new charge could be a violation of his probation from a case last summer. In that case, he was charged with drug possession and was convicted of attempting to commit an offense in October.
Simpson, who also has an address on Hamilton Street Southwest and Parkman Road Northwest, was placed on three years’ probation.
Members of the U.S. Marshal’s Violent Fugitives Task Force arrested Simpson at 7:45 p.m. Monday at the Giant Eagle on Mahoning Avenue Northwest. Warren police had issued an arrest warrant Friday charging him with Pyne’s death.