Marshals, YPD, search for suspect in Sunday slaying

June 15, 2018 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The suspect in a homicide Sunday on Goleta Avenue on the North Side turned himself in to police Thursday evening.

Jesse Williams, 51, will be arraigned in municipal court today on a charge of aggravated murder for the shooting death of Diane Dent, 62, who was killed about 1:30 p.m. Sunday after she answered a knock on her door.

A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals said Williams told police detectives he decided to surrender because of the pressure of the manhunt by marshals.

Arrested Wednesday in the case on a charge of complicity to commit aggravated murder was Rebecca Perez, 46, of New Road. She also is expected to be arraigned at a hearing today.

Police said Williams went to Dent’s home looking for her son, with whom he was in a fight the night before in Austintown, and he shot Dent instead.

Lt. Doug Bobovnyik said police have evidence that Perez was in the same car with Williams that was used in the shooting.

The car is registered to a relative of Williams, Bobovnyik said.

Williams is the brother of Willie “Flip” Williams, who was executed in October 2005 at the age of 48 for killing four people in 1994 on the city’s East Side.

A son of Flip Williams, Stoney Williams was sentenced in 2007 to 28 years to life in prison for the shooting death of a 3-year-old girl in the front yard of a home on Stewart Avenue on the East Side.

Also, Dent’s grandson, Jiyen Dent Jr., 3 months, was killed in March 2003 in his Rutledge Drive home, also on the East Side, after his home was riddled with gunfire. A man was convicted and sentenced to death for the baby’s murder.