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Suspect in machete attack also homicide suspect
Prosecutor says same method used in other assaults
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A city prosecutor said a man arraigned in municipal court for a March 22 attack on a man with a machete is a suspect in similar attacks, including the city’s most recent homicide.
Judge Renee DiSalvo set bond Friday at $50,000 for Leonard Carter, 30, of Youngstown, who was arraigned on a charge of felonious assault. Judge DiSalvo also ordered Carter to undergo an alcohol and mental-health evaluation while he is in the Mahoning County jail.
Carter was charged Thursday in a March 22 attack on a man on the East Side. Assistant City Prosecutor Jeffrey Moliterno told the judge Carter is a suspect in other attacks involving the same method used in the March 22 attack, including a homicide where the body of a man was found about 11 p.m. Wednesday inside a vacant 771 Willow St. home.
Police and investigators from the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office are still trying to find out the victim’s identity. He had been there for a couple of days and perhaps a week before he was found in the upstairs of the home.
The victim was found after an officer who was at McGuffey Road and Willow writing a report was approached by a bloodied man who said someone grabbed him while he was walking on McGuffey Road, dragged him to the vacant Willow home, hit him twice with a brick and cut him with a machete.
When police went to investigate, they found the dead man on the second floor. Police said he had some trauma, but they did not say what type, instead deferring to the coroner’s office.
A call to the coroner’s office Friday afternoon was not returned.
In the March 22 attack, police were called about 8:10 a.m. to a McGuffey Road store on the East Side, where a man told them he was with his friend when his friend cut him with a machete while they were at a nearby vacant home. The man fled to the store and called police. He had a large gash on his arm, reports said.
The man told police he did not know where the house was or what street he ran from. He was interviewed by detectives Thursday, and after the interview, a warrant was issued for Carter.
Capt. Brad Blackburn, chief of detectives, said he did not want to comment on any possible ties between Carter and the homicide, except to stress Carter has not yet been charged with that crime.