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Three charged with Belden Avenue murder
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police charged three men Tuesday with aggravated murder in a shooting death earlier that day on the South Side.
Lorenzo Hilton, 26, and Vincent Reber, 21, are both in St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital with a police hold charged with aggravated murder in the slaying of Daniel Sanford, 28, whose body was found early Tuesday in a Belden Avenue home.
Also wanted is Reber’s brother, Derrick Reber, 19. He remained at large as of late Tuesday.
Detective Sgt. Ron Rodway said Derrick Reber drove his brother and Hilton to ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital with gunshot wounds, and the two claimed to have been shot in Warren.
Warren police were contacted, who in turn contacted Youngstown police, and they were able to link them to Sanford’s death.
Rodway would not say how they were able to link them.
Sanford was killed in an exchange of gunfire, Rodway said. Hilton and Vincent Reber were transferred to St. Elizabeth to be treated for their wounds.
Court records show Hilton was sentenced to five years in prison in July 2010 by former Judge James C. Evans in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for aggravated burglary, being a felon in possession of a firearm and felonious assault and a firearm specification and given credit for 320 days spent in the county jail.
Hilton filed three motions for early release, all denied by Judge Evans. In December 2015, he pleaded no contest and was found guilty of a charge of domestic violence in Mahoning County Area Court in Boardman and was given a suspended sentence.
Vincent Reber has misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence and resisting arrest in county court in Boardman and a pending misdemeanor drug-abuse case in Austintown.
Derrick Reber pleaded guilty Aug. 15 in common pleas court to a charge of attempted possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and is awaiting sentencing. Court records do not show a sentencing date.
In 2014, Derrick Reber was branded with a snuff can by four adults in Struthers, all of whom pleaded guilty in the case. He suffered third-degree burns and had skin-graft surgery to heal the open wounds. He also had a blood infection that could have resulted in death had it gone untreated, according to police reports.
Sanford had misdemeanor drug cases in municipal court and county court in Sebring five years apart, records show.
Sanford’s death gives the city 14 homicides for 2016. At this point in 2015, the city had 15 homicides. In 2015, Youngstown had 23 homicides.