Bond reduced to $500K in West Side murder case

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Bond for an 18-year-old Austintown man charged with a homicide was reduced Monday to $500,000 after a pretrial hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

The bond is a reduction of the $1 million bond set earlier for Mark Winlock, who is charged with aggravated murder in the March 4 shooting death of Brandon Wareham, also 18 and also of Austintown, at a home on Rhoda Avenue.

Police said Wareham went to the West Side home to sell marijuana but instead was ambushed and shot by Winlock, who reports said put Wareham in a headlock and shot him in the head in front of his girlfriend.

Winlock surrendered to police two days after Wareham’s death, and his bond was set at $1 million during his arraignment in municipal court. That bond was continued when the case was bound over to common pleas court and no bond was set at Winlock’s arraignment.

Winlock’s attorney, James Wise, had asked Judge Anthony D’Apolito for a lower bond, saying his client has no criminal record.

A county grand jury indicted two other men involving their suspected roles in Wareham’s death a week after Winlock was indicted.