43
Man found in burning car was shot
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Coroner’s office has ruled the death of a man found in a burning car Friday afternoon a homicide.
Chief of Detectives Capt. Brad Blackburn on Monday said an autopsy revealed the victim, Anthony J. Bianco, 51, of Stevenson Road in Masury, had been shot.
Bianco was found about 1:15 p.m. Friday in the front seat of a car that was on fire at Knapp and Seifert avenues on the East Side.
Court records show that Bianco was sentenced to a year in prison in 2010 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court in separate cases including passing bad checks, theft and deception to obtain a dangerous drug. Those sentences all ran concurrently.
He also received a six-month sentence in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on a charge of passing bad checks that ran concurrently with his Trumbull County sentences.
There are no local records for Bianco for any other cases after 2010.
A woman said she drove past the car, which was parked on the side of Seifert Avenue in front of a vacant home, about 11 a.m. Friday and saw the door open and a man slumped over the steering wheel.
She said she called her daughter and told the daughter to call police.
She saw the car on fire when she returned.
Investigators still have not yet ruled if the car fire is an arson.
Anyone with information is asked to call 330-746-CLUE or Youngstown police at 330-742-8929.
Bianco’s death is the 10th homicide in 2016. At this time in 2015, Youngstown had 12 homicides.