Woman at center of feud that led to deaths in Hamad case expected to testify

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

As the facts begin to emerge from the witness stand Monday in the Nasser Hamad aggravated-murder trial, jurors will focus their attention on what Hamad did Feb. 25 to get himself charged with shooting to death two young men and injuring three other people.

If convicted of certain charges, he could get the death penalty.

But there was another person at Hamad’s house on state Route 46 across from the Sleepy Hollow Sleep Shop that Saturday afternoon besides Hamad and the five people who came to his house ready to fight after a monthslong feud.

Tracy Hendrickson, 47, Hamad’s girlfriend, told The Vindicator the next morning she was there in the front yard with Hamad as the confrontation unfolded.

Hendrickson, who will testify at the trial, was in the middle of things in other ways, especially since one of the five was her son, Bryce, then 19, who lived on Dawson Drive, just around the corner from Hamad’s house.

Tracy Hendrickson also lived at the Dawson Drive residence with her husband, Brian, and their son, Dylan, then 18, until she moved out to live with Hamad.

Bryce, who was on the witness list for the trial, died Sept. 30 in a home in McDonald. Police suspect his death and that of a woman with him were the result of a drug overdose.

On Nov. 6, 2016, the Howland Police Department became well aware there was a problem involving Tracy, Brian, their sons and Hamad because telephone calls from the Hendrickson and Hamad residences came fast and furious that day, according to Howland police reports.

At 9:45 p.m., Brian, 48, called 911 saying Dylan was talking on the phone with his mother, Tracy, who was staying with Hamad, 48, and Brian could hear Hamad in the background threatening to come to the Hendrickson home and shoot somebody.

Sgt. Jennifer Carr of the Howland Police Department went to the Hendrickson home and advised Brian how to file charges or seek a protection order.

In another report, Carr said Hamad started calling 911 at 4:55 p.m. that day, but Carr got voicemail when she called him back. She finally spoke with him at 7:17 p.m.

Hamad said two cars kept driving past his house, with someone yelling obscenities and throwing trash in his yard. He said he suspected the Hendricksons were doing it.

He said Brian and his sons also were sending text messages that were threatening to get their “guns and street gang” and to come to Hamad’s house. Hamad also was advised on talking to a prosecutor about filing menacing charges.

Carr spoke with Hamad again at 7:37 p.m. after he called 911 again regarding a “can full of dog feces” and an intimate item belonging to Tracy being thrown in Hamad’s yard. Tracy identified the intimate item as hers.

Brian Hendrickson would later tell The Vindicator Tracy Hendrickson went back to the Dawson address to live with him and their sons in January but left again.

On Feb. 24, one day before the shootings, Tracy filed for divorce from Brian Hendrickson, saying they were “mutually incompatible,” but Brian told the newspaper he was unaware on Feb. 25 the divorce had been filed.

Trumbull County Family Court later approved five-year protection orders against Brian, Bryce and Dylan Hendrickson that Tracy filed against them. None of the three attended the hearings or contested the protection orders.

Shortly after the shootings occurred, Howland police said the feud between Hamad and the Hendricksons seemed to be based on Bryce and Dylan being “upset with mom and upset” with Hamad because of the relationship between Tracy and Hamad.

Tracy told The Vindicator she had known Hamad since they attended Howland schools together.

Brian, meanwhile, told the paper all of the five who went to Hamad’s house Feb. 25 were related in some way to him.

Josh Williams, 20, of Warren, who was killed, is Brian’s nephew. April Trent-Vokes, 42, who drove the four males to Hamad’s home that day, is related by marriage to Brian. She is the mother of Joshua Haber, 19, who also was killed, and John Shively, 17.

She and her sons had come from Florida to live in Warren in the weeks before the shooting, Brian said.