COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court recently refused to hear the appeal filed by the family of Nasser Hamad, a Howland man convicted by a jury of aggravated murder who later died in prison.

Hamad was convicted of killing two young men and injuring three other people who had come to his home uninvited.

Hamad, 49, died in prison of natural causes in September 2018 while serving his 37-years-to-life sentence for aggravated murder and other offenses.

The shootings took place Feb. 25, 2017, outside of Hamad’s home along the busy state Route 46 commercial corridor near the Eastwood Mall complex. The episode culminated a monthslong feud among Hamad and several members of his girlfriend’s family.

One of the grounds for appeal was that the jury in Hamad’s Trumbull County Common Pleas Court trial was not allowed to consider the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter.

Hamad’s attorney said the facts of the case could have reasonably supported acquittal as to aggravated murder and conviction of voluntary manslaughter because Hamad killed in a “fit of rage or passion.”

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