Cold case: Anonymous phone call leads police to man’s body on South Side street in ’01 homicide

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — An anonymous phone call early Aug. 23, 2001, led a father and son police duo to a South Side street and the discovery of a man’s body.

The death of the man, Vaschon May, 24, is still unsolved.

May was found about 12:40 a.m. after then Patrolman and now Detective Sgt. John Fields and his father — retired Detective Sgt. John Fields, Sr. — were called to the area around the former Pyatt Street Diner, where they met a group of people who were looking for May’s body.

May’s girlfriend told police she had received an anonymous phone call that her boyfriend was dead and could be found in the woods between Pyatt Street and Plymouth Avenue.

As they were searching, a man came out of his Erie Street home and told police there was a body behind his fence. Police went there and found May, who was dressed in black with gloves on his hands and a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun next to him.

That man also told police earlier — about 10:40 p.m. — he saw a man outside his home with a gun, and he fired several shots at the man as he ran through his back yard. The homeowner said he heard another gun firing. The homeowner called police and told them a prowler was in the area.

Police searched the man’s backyard and the nearby woods in the heavy rain but did not see anything before leaving.

As police were questioning witnesses and looking for evidence, friends and family members of May’s were arriving in several cars and trying to get to the crime scene. Reports said they became “emotional” and “irate” as officers tried to hold them back and other cars had to be called in for crowd control.

May’s relative, who was in the back of a cruiser so he could be taken to the police station to be questioned, kicked out one of the back windows and was taken away screaming and punching, reports said.

A witness also called police later in the day at about 8:15 a.m. and alerted them to possible evidence at East Chalmers and Heasley avenues near the sidewalk. The evidence was collected and stored but reports do not state what that evidence was.

A few days after May died, former Detective Sgt. Ron Rodway, the lead investigator on the case, told WKBN that a bullet removed from May during his autopsy did not match the gun the homeowner fired that evening.

May’s death was one of 18 unsolved homicides in 2001, a year that saw 34 people murdered.

This story is part of a series of cold cases that WKBN is examining.

Do you have a cold case that you’d like us to look into further? Submit a cold case to WKBN.

Anyone who has information on May’s death can call the Detective Bureau at 330-742-8911 or Crime Stoppers Youngstown at 330-746-CLUE.

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