Murder trial in final stages

October 10, 2018 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Prosecutors in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court called on their final witness Tuesday in the homicide trial of Charles Allen.

Walter Madison, the attorney for Allen, 24, of Campbell, also presented witnesses for jurors to hear.

Attorneys for both sides will give summations today before jurors are instructed on the law by visiting Judge Thomas Pokorny and then sent to deliberate.

Allen is accused in the Aug. 29, 2017, shooting death of Tyreese Lynch, 22, who died several hours after being found in a car on Chicago Avenue with a gunshot wound to the head.

Also charged in the case is Jamar Sklenchar, 20. Lynch was found inside Sklenchar’s car by police who answered a gunshot-sensor call in the neighborhood.

City police Detective Sgt. Ronald Rodway told jurors that Allen became a suspect after a witness told him that Allen and Sklenchar were together the night of the fatal shooting.

Sklenchar was interviewed shortly after the shooting and let go. After Rodway talked to the witness, he re-interviewed Sklenchar and now both Sklenchar and Allen are suspects, Rodway said.

Both were indicted a couple of weeks later by a grand jury.

Madison called a witness who said she was at a nearby gas station shortly before Lynch was killed, and she saw him and Sklenchar together in a car. She did not see Allen, the witness testified.