Coroner identifies bones found on North Side

May 7, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Investigators have identified human bones found on the North Side last month.

The Mahoning County Coroner’s Office said the bones belonged to Jabreal Collins, 18, who was last seen in 2013, when he was reported missing.

Dr. Joseph Ohr, the county’s forensic pathologist, ruled the death a homicide.

The bones were found late April 8 on Wydesteel Avenue by a man who used to live there. Police said the man was walking through the back of a vacant lot when he found a skull and took it to the police station.

Police went to the scene that evening, then returned in daylight the next day. They found only the torso in the backyard of a vacant lot.

Also found on the body were a pair of headphones and a letterman’s style jacket.

Inside the jacket were multiple bullet holes, and there was one bullet in the coat that did not penetrate the inner layer. A news release from Dr. Ohr said an examination of the skeleton found trauma in the rib areas overlying the heart, which is consistent with a gunshot wound.

The release said identification was helped by Dr. Robert Johnson, a forensic odontologist at Youngstown State University, and Dr. Loren Lease, an anthropologist at YSU.

Police early on said the body appeared to be that of a black male between 18 and 35 years old, and they had been combing through missing-persons reports to see if they could find an identification.

The release said Collins’ mother is from Columbus and his father is an inmate at the Trumbull Correctional Institution. The release said he was a resident of Safehouse Ministries on Eastway Drive.

The website for the National Center for Missing And Exploited Children said Collins was last seen July 8, 2013.