YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — The fiance of the man who was killed after he was chased across part of the South Side testified today in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court she knows Vashuad May killed him — and shot her and one of her children — because she knows his eyes.
Rekia Wright, the fiance of 24-year-old Rawsheem Aponte, testified today before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum that May killed Aponte April 26, 2022, wounded her and one of her children, because she knows his eyes.
Testimony began Tuesday in May’s trial after a jury was seated.
May , 22, is charged with aggravated murder, attempted murder and felonious assault.
Detectives said Aponte was being chased by May and was shot after he came to a dead end on Mohawk Avenue. His girlfriend and their child were in the car with him.
Aponte was shot in the driver’s seat and died at the scene by someone who walked up to his car. The girl and her mother were treated for gunshot wounds at St. Elizabeth Health Center.
Wright testified under direct examination from Assistant Prosecutor Steve Maszczak that she knows May was the person who fired shots into the car because “I know his eyes.”
Wright told Maszczak she knew Aponte and May had argued before but she did not say what they argued about.
May was charged shortly after Aponte’s death but he was not indicted until January by a grand jury because he had fled. He was arrested in November by U.S. Marshals in Minnesota and returned to Youngstown.
In his opening statement, Maszczak told jurors the shooting was captured on video and jurors will be able to tell the shooter was May because of the rifle he was carrying and how he wielded that rifle.
Maszczak said the video came from a home security system on Mohawk Avenue. He said it shows May walking up to the passenger’s side of Aponte’s car and firing several shots through the window.
May was seen in a rap video a few days before the shooting firing a similar AR-15 style rifle and the way he held it in the video is the way the person who shot at Aponte’s car was holding it, Maszczak said.
The day of the shooting, Aponte and Wright stopped at a home on Belden Avenue on the way to the store but when Aponte spotted two cars there he told his girlfriend he had to leave, Maszczak said.
Aponte drove away but both cars followed him, firing shots on Poland Avenue and continuing as Aponte led them on a chase. Aponte thought he had lost them on Mount Vernon Avenue, but that was a “fatal mistake,” Maszczak said, because the road dead ends.
May was in a white Malibu that was able to catch up to Aponte’s car, Maszczak said. Police found that car two days later, he said.
Maszczak said Wright told police three days after the shooting, after she got out of the hospital, that it was May who had shot them.
Maszczak did not go into a motive during his opening statement.
Aaron Meikle, May’s attorney, said police have nothing but speculation that May was the shooter. Meikle said the girlfriend’s identification is tainted because she had watched other videos of the shooting and May. He also said she does not know May.
Meikle also said prosecutors are expected to show jurors DNA evidence but none of that DNA belongs to May.
Under cross examination from Meikle, a sometimes visibly irritated Wright said she knows May because she had seen him around town before and had also seen his picture on the internet.
She had also seen him previously at a gas station when she was with Aponte, Wright testified.
“I was close enough to know his face. I was close enough to know who he was,” she said.
When they were being chased, Wright testified Aponte told her he did not know who was chasing him or doing the shooting. She was either ducking down beneath the dashboard or trying to cover up her kids in the backseat to protect them from gunfire.
The first two witnesses, city patrol officers Carlo Eggleston Jr. and Joe Wess Jr., testified that the scene was “hectic” and “chaotic” when they responded separately.
When Eggleston got there someone put the child who was wounded in his arms. As he pulled up Wess spotted them, grabbed a first aid kit and put a tourniquet on her leg. Jurors watched that from Wess’ body camera footage that day.
Eggleston said the girl told him, “My daddy died.” Eggleston and Wess can be seen trying to reassure her as they treated her wounds before an ambulance took her to St. Elizabeth Health Center.
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