METRO DIGEST || 4-year-old asks for help

4-year-old asks for help

YOUNGSTOWN

Police found a woman, 65, dead in her home at 12:30 p.m. Friday with pills nearby as her grandson, 4, was found walking in front of the residence.

An Ohio Edison employee said he was walking his route when he saw the boy in front of 2003 Weston St. The boy said his grandmother was passed out and asked the worker if he could wake her up. The worker said he went into the home and found Carolyn DePietro deceased. Her appearance indicated she had been there a while, he said.

Police said pill bottles were found under her body. Ambulance personnel pronounced her dead at 1 p.m.

Detectives and crime-scene personnel were called to investigate. A representative from children’ services said the boy would go to the home of a neighbor who frequently cares for the boy, but neighbors say he is now in the care of another relative. The Mahoning County Coroner does not suspect foul play.

Drugs found in rental owned by Traficanti

POLAND TWP.

A drug-trafficking investigation in Poland Township resulted in the seizure of suspected drugs and drug paraphernalia from a rental home owned by Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti.

According to the Vindicator’s broadcast partner, 21 WFMJ-TV, the Mahoning County Drug Task Force investigated half of a duplex on Clingan Road, then seized white powder, brown powder, paraphernalia and cash there recently.

The woman living there will be charged, said Task Force Commander Jeff Solic.

Traficanti, when asked to comment, said he immediately began eviction proceedings against the tenant after finding out about the raid.

“Drugs are not allowed on any property that I own, and I own over 40 properties,” Traficanti said. “I take this very seriously, but I can’t possibly know what everyone is doing behind closed doors.”

Pipe bomb disarmed

JOHNSTON

The Youngstown Bomb Squad responded to a home on Bradley Brownlee Road in Johnston Township Friday to disarm a pipe bomb that a man found in the basement of a home he recently bought.

Lee Nichols called 911 at 11:46 a.m. to say that he carried the pipe bomb outside of the home.

“I picked it up and looked at it and realizing what it was, I was like, it’s a bomb,” Nichols told the Vindicator’s broadcast partner, 21 WFMJ-TV.

With it already in his hand, Nichols decided to get it out of the house. “Realizing what it was, I ran it out and sat it up on the front porch,” Nichols said.

A meeting that was underway in a church next door was evacuated, along with a house next door.

While Nichols and neighbors looked on, the device was removed to a vacant lot behind the house where the bomb squad fired a shot at it to disarm it.