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Man arraigned after girlfriend wounded during fight
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Reports said a Canton Street woman wounded in the thigh Sunday evening told police the man accused of shooting her forced her to say she shot herself.
James Sunderman, 30, of Canton Street, was arraigned Monday in municipal court on a charge of felonious assault before Judge Elizabeth Kobly. Bond was set at $25,000.
Police were called about 7 p.m. Sunday to Sunderman’s home for a report of a woman who had shot herself. When they arrived, they found a woman lying at the bottom of the basement steps in a pool of blood from a gunshot wound to the thigh, and there was a .12-gauge shotgun several feet away from her.
Reports said officers tried to stop the bleeding while waiting for paramedics, and that Sunderman told police without any prompting that the victim had shot herself. She was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for treatment.
When the victim went to the hospital, reports said officers examined the crime scene and determined that the evidence did not match the story of how the woman managed to shoot herself.
At the hospital, the woman’s mother and a nurse told police that the victim told them Sunderman had shot her and held the shotgun to her head and threatened her into telling dispatchers she had shot herself.
Reports said when police were able to talk to her, the victim said she and Sunderman had been arguing, and she went into the basement to get some clothes, which is when she was shot.
She also said to police that Sunderman had told her to tell the dispatcher that she had shot herself.
Sundeman will have a preliminary hearing next week.