Jury reaches verdict in fatal triple shooting in Youngstown

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Jurors Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court found a man guilty of killing another man and wounding his fiance and their child following a chase on the South Side.

Vashuad May, 22, was found guilty on charges of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault with firearm specifications and being a felon in possession of a firearm following a two-day trial before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum.

May will be sentenced Monday.

Jurors began hearing testimony after they were seated Tuesday. They started deliberating Wednesday afternoon before reaching their verdicts today.

May was on trial for the April 26, 2022, shooting death of Rawsheem Aponte, 24. Police said that a car Aponte was driving was chased on several South Side streets before it ended up at a dead end on Mohawk Avenue.

There, a man police said was May got out of another car, ran over to Aponte’s car and fired several shots from an AR-15 style rifle, killing Aponte and wounding his fiance, Rekia Wright as well as their 3-year-old daughter.

Wright testified that Aponte had been in a feud with members of the May family, but she never said what the feud was about.

Prosecutors said two cars chased Aponte’s car but once Aponte got to Mohawk Avenue, there was only one car that followed him there. That car, a white Malibu, was found a few days after Aponte was killed.

Police issued a warrant for May’s arrest a couple of days after Aponte was killed, but he managed to elude police until he was found in November by U.S. Marshals in Minnesota and brought back to Youngstown.

Prosecutors said Wright had identified May as the shooter, and she testified she knew it was him because she knew his eyes.

Prosecutors also said that May made a rap video a few days before Aponte was killed where he wielded a rifle similar to the one used to kill Aponte and that May held the rifle the same way the person who shot Aponte did.

Jurors viewed that video and another from a surveillance camera from a nearby home on Mohawk Avenue that showed the shooting.

Defense attorney Aaron Meikle said his client did not kill May and police did not have solid evidence that he was the man who fired the shots that killed Aponte and wounded the others.

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