Off-duty EMT was among the unsuspecting bystanders caught in crossfire of Howland killings

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

The shooting deaths of two young men and disfiguring gunshot wounds to two other people Feb. 25 along state Route 46 near Eastwood Mall would have been enough carnage to draw people’s attention on the news.

But add Saturday afternoon traffic on the busiest commercial corridor in Trumbull County and gunshots fired directly into that traffic, and the Nasser Hamad aggravated-murder case became personal for some.

“It was disturbing because I or someone I know could have been on that highway,” one male potential juror in the Hamad trial said last month about news coverage of the shootings.

Hamad, of Howland, was convicted a week ago on two counts of aggravated murder and six counts of attempted aggravated murder. Police say the shootings stemmed from a monthslong feud with members of his girlfriend’s family.

Testimony in the penalty phase begins today in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. The jury could give him the death penalty or one of several life-sentence options.

The feud escalated the afternoon of Feb. 25 when Hamad and two of the men in the van – Bryce Hendrickson, 20, and John Shively, 19 – exchanged scores of hostile Facebook messages.

Someone driving on Route 46 who found himself too close to the gunfire was Ben Moody, a young, off-duty, part-time Howland Township firefighter and emergency medical technician on his way to the mall.

Moody, a high school football and track standout at Lakeview High School who continued his education at the Ivy League college Cornell in New York, was traveling south on Route 46 when a car in front of him swerved, then a bloody teenager appeared in front of him. Moody had little choice but to stop.

“I noticed a gentleman in an orange hoodie actually step out in front of my car waving his hands screaming for help,” Moody recalled as he testified last week in Hamad’s trial.

The youth was Shively, who had blood on his face because he had just come from his mother’s minivan parked at the end of Hamad’s driveway near the street, where his mother and a couple of other relatives had been shot moments before.

Hamad, the gunman, had gone back into his house, and Shively was desperately seeking help for his mother, April Trent-Vokes, 42, who was slumped over the wheel. Also injured was Johua Williams, 20, who later died.

Moody, who did not grant an interview for this story, had no idea he was about to walk into a shooting scene.

“I assumed it was a car accident or some type of medical emergency,” Moody testified. “Seeing that there was obvious stress [in Shively], I decided to pull off into the gravel lot beside the van.”

He saw that the van “was at an awkward angle. It looked like it had gone off the road over the curb,” Moody said.

Moody had a basic first-aid kit in the back of his pickup truck. After putting the truck in park, he looked over and saw the injured Trent-Vokes in the driver’s seat.

What he didn’t know was that Hamad was just then returning to the minivan from his house, and he had a gun.

“As I stepped out of the vehicle, I yelled out, ‘What’s going on?’ just for someone to start talking to me until I grabbed my bag out of the car,” Moody testified. Moody wasn’t looking toward the van.

But the next few words stopped him cold.

“There was a male voice. I heard him say, ‘I’ll show you,’” Moody testified. “And that caught my attention right away.”

“When I heard that, I stopped because that was not the response I was expecting,” Moody said.

Moody turned to look. Not only did he see a man wearing a gray sweatshirt near the passenger side of the van holding a gun, but he also caught a glimpse of bullet holes in the van windshield.

“He had his hands between his legs and was doing something with the gun,” Moody said of Hamad. Moody explained in court that he didn’t know if the gun had jammed or Hamad was loading the gun.

But he realized he was in real danger.

“I froze for half a second,” he said. “I got back into the driver’s seat of my car, looked back to make sure I ... was not in any immediate danger,” Moody said. “I saw him lift his arm into the passenger side of the car and fire three shots.”

It’s unclear whether Hamad viewed Moody as a threat.

Hamad testified Oct. 27 that he feared for his own life as he walked around his property with his gun, saying he feared the five might have a gun or that someone else may have followed the five to his property and might be aiming to kill him at any time.

“In my mind, there’s more than these people,” Hamad testified.

Hamad also said that when he saw Moody standing near the driver’s side of the van after getting out of his pickup truck, he did not view Moody to be a threat.

“I’m thinking he’s not a threat because he asked me if everything’s OK, I believe.”

Hamad testified that Moody “came and I told him something so he could feel comfortable, and I think that’s when I raised my gun up,” Hamad said of the seconds before he opened fire on the passenger side of the van.

“I don’t have time to explain anything to him,” Hamad said of Moody. “He doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s got no clue. I said something to him so he knows don’t worry, I’m not shooting you. I don’t even remember what I said,” Hamad testified.

Moody drove his truck forward past Hamad’s house and into the back of Hamad’s property, where Hamad parked excavating equipment and trucks used in his construction business.

“When I got to the back of the property, I realized there was no way to get out.” Moody said.

A state champion sprinter, Moody got out of the truck and checked to see if he was safe. He saw that Hamad was standing near Joshua Haber, 19, another son of Trent-Vokes’. Haber and Hamad were screaming at each other with Haber telling Hamad: “You shot my mom,” Moody testified.

Moments later, Hamad fired two shots at Haber as Haber tried to jump head first into the van, killing Haber nearly instantly with a bullet that entered the teen’s back and pierced his aorta.

It was at that moment Moody ran to the back of an adjacent property on Dawson Drive, where he encountered a man letting his dog out, and the man allowed Moody into his house to call 911.