YOUNGSTOWN — A June 19, 2018, surveillance video from the playground of the Plaza View apartment complex shows two males — with one in a white shirt firing a gun multiple times toward the surveillance camera.

Law enforcement officials say the shots killed Brandon Wylie, 30, who is not visible in the video.

Another camera angle shows Wylie and two men earlier, walking through the East Side apartment complex.

Neither video is clear enough to provide a clear-cut identification of the males, but police spoke to witnesses and pieced together information that resulted in Brian Donlow Jr., 25, and Stephon Hopkins, 22, both of Youngstown, being charged in the killing.

FOUR DONLOWS

At a recent hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Donlow’s attorney, John Laczko, questioned retired Youngstown police detective Doug Bobovnyik about a set of four photos Bobovnyik showed a woman. The woman identified Donlow as being present at the apartment complex around the time Wylie was killed.

Laczko has asked Judge Anthony D’Apolito to rule that the woman’s identification not be admissible in Donlow’s trial, set for Feb. 18, because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the four photos. These photos showed Brian Donlow Jr. and three other area men whose names are similar and may be related to him — Byron Donlow, 23; Ta’Brian Donlow, 22; and Brian Donlow, 21.

Bobovnyik testified that he showed the woman the four photos to narrow down which of the four “Brian” Donlows she saw that night in connection to the murder.

She identified the defendant.

But Laczko argued there are specific requirements police must follow when showing a witness an array of photos of this type, and Bobovnyik’s methodology did not follow those requirements.

The requirements are an effort to avoid bias on the part of the police officer from influencing a witness to select a certain suspect. For

example, the American Psychological Association recommends video recording of the identification process and having someone unfamiliar with the case present the array to the witness.

WITNESS LINEUP

In a recent filing, assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Steve Yacovone argued against the identification being suppressed from trial, saying the rules for showing a witness a “lineup” of suspects are not necessary in this instance because the witness knew the man he or she was identifying.

The witness said there were several Brian Donlows but she “knew which of them was in the Plazaview that night,” the filing says. The witness “was simply confirming who she meant by Brian Donlow.”

The filing also mentions other witnesses to people who were there that night. One witness told police he or she recognized Hopkins as the person shooting the gun in the video because the person “sees (him) around all of the time.”

Judge D’Apolito has not yet ruled on the motion, or one filed by Atty. J. Gerald Ingram, who represents Hopkins in another murder case.

That motion seeks to suppress evidence regarding a house key police found in the car with Christopher Jackson Jr. 21, of Warren, when he was found shot to death Nov. 18, 2018. Jackson was found at Bennington and Stewart avenues on the East Side.

Police tried the key in the door at Hopkins’ house and it locked and unlocked the door, but Ingram says trying the key in the door violated Hopkins’ rights to unlawful search and seizure.

That case is scheduled for trial May 4. Donlow is also charged in that murder, and Judge D’Apolito is also presiding over that case.

erunyan@tribtoday.com