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New charges filed in East Side murder
3 suspects in death arraigned
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
The death of a woman Jan. 24 in her East Side apartment as she was holding her son was the culmination of three shootings that day, police said.
As three suspects were arraigned on murder charges in the death of Crystal Hernandez, 24, police Friday charged her boyfriend, Gabriel Smith, 19, and Lavante Perry, 24, with felonious assault.
Smith was in custody Friday night, U.S. marshals announced. Perry was not in custody Friday.
Detective Sgt. Rick Spotleson said the group that killed Hernandez fired shots at Smith earlier in the day Jan. 24. Smith and Perry then retaliated with a shooting at 1050 McGuffey Road. Later in the evening, about 9:20 p.m., Hernandez was killed after a hail of gunfire at her McBride Street apartment after the suspects went there looking for Smith and Perry.
Police have charged eight people total: six people with her slaying – with four now in custody, the latest being Maurice Redrick, 19, who surrendered Friday, the marshal’s service said.
Also being sought in the death of Hernandez are Marquise Torres-Willis, 21, and Joquaun Blair, 22.
City Law Director Jeff Limbian said the shootings all stemmed from an attempted robbery of drugs and money. He said he was not sure who may have been responsible for that robbery.
Magistrate Anthony Sertick set bond at $1 million each Friday for Martize Daniels and Larenz Rhodes, both 18; and Burton McGee, 19. They are all charged with murder in the death of Hernandez in her McBride Street apartment as she held her 2-year-old boy, who was not harmed.
Assistant city Prosecutor Jeffrey Moliterno said at the arraignment witnesses told police they saw Daniels and Rhodes firing weapons into the apartment. Moliterno said witnesses also saw McGee at the shooting scene, but Moliterno did not say if McGee was also seen firing a weapon.
Investigators collected at least 40 shell casings from the parking lot at the apartment and found rounds from two types of handguns and an assault rifle. The boy was asleep on his mother’s chest when he was found by first responders as she was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the neck.
Rhodes was given an additional $25,000 bond on unrelated charges of burglary and aggravated menacing and was already in the jail when the murder charge was filed against him.
Members of McGee’s family were present for the arraignment, and some were sobbing in the hallway when it was over. A representative of the family declined to speak to a reporter.
Limbian said Spotleson deserves a lot of credit for unraveling what happened that day.
“He really did a masterful job,” Limbian said.
Police Chief Robin Lees also credited Spotleson and his partner, detective Sgt. Anthony Vitullo, for being able to make the case quickly with very little to go on. Lees also said the case shows the importance of making arrests quickly to stop retaliatory violence, the kind of violence that cost an innocent person’s life, Lees said.