Warren PD treating discovered body as homicide victim

WARREN — Warren police are treating the finding of a body on Halladay Avenue Southwest Saturday night as a possible homicide.

Such instances are treated as a possible homicide until and unless investigators find out otherwise, police said this morning.

A Warren police report refers to the black male found under the Reserve Avenue bridge near Deemer Park as “John Doe.”

A woman called 911 at 10:12 p.m., saying she spotted the body under the bridge. She said she was driving through the area when she saw it.

“It’s like right in the middle. If you all go over there, you will probably see it, because I wasn’t walking or nothing. I was just riding by. It’s visible. I think it was a black male. His shirt was like half off,” she said. She had left the area by the time she called 911.

An officer found the body a couple of minutes later. Detectives investigated the scene, and the body was removed a few hours later. An autopsy will be conducted.

The location is next to the former Warren Western Reserve High School and the Westlawn housing development, both of which were demolished, leaving acres of vacant land.

It's a short distance from where the body of Brittany D. May, 28, of Hamilton Street Southwest, was found last July. Her death was ruled a homicide as a result of gunshot wounds, but no one was arrested in the death.

The body of her boyfriend, Jerry Hughley, 35, also of Hamilton Street, was also found about a mile away on Risher Road about a week later. He also had been shot, apparently at about the same time as May, and there have been no arrests in his death either.