Overdose case: Cops used victim’s phone
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Prosecutors said in papers filed in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that police investigating an October 2017 overdose death in Austintown had no obligation to inform a suspected drug dealer the person he was corresponding with had died from an overdose.
Prosecutors also said Kewann Skinner, 23, of Lakewood Avenue, said he understood his Fifth Amendment rights and could have left an interview with police at any time when they questioned him about the death of Vito Weeks, 24, who died Oct. 19, 2017, after being found unresponsive in the bedroom of his Claridge Drive home.
The papers were filed Tuesday in response to a defense motion to suppress statements Skinner made to police when they questioned him about Weeks’ death.
A hearing was to take place Tuesday before Judge Anthony D’Apolito, but it was continued because the judge is presiding over a jury trial.
A county grand jury indicted Skinner in January on charges of involuntary manslaughter, trafficking in heroin and corrupting another with drugs, but the indictment was not unsealed until he was arrested in July. He has remained in the county jail since his arrest.
The motion shows some of the ways police were able to track down Skinner as the person who sold Weeks the drugs that killed him.
It said police used Weeks’ cellphone and used the last number in his phone, which was Skinner’s, to set up another drug buy with the officer posing as Weeks. When Skinner showed up, he was taken into custody, then questioned by police about Weeks’ death.
The motion said Skinner gave “several incriminating statements” about his role in the death while he was being questioned by investigators.
Prosecutors said federal and state case law both state a defendant can’t agree to waive their rights, then afterward claim they would not answer questions if they knew everything the police wanted to ask them.
Weeks’ death was ruled accidental from multiple drug toxicity. Toxicology reports found heroin, fentanyl and other substances in his system.
Common pleas court records show Skinner was sentenced to eight months in prison in October 2015 after violating his probation on a charge of cocaine possession.