YOUNGSTOWN — Six defendants previously identified in the shooting death of a Youngstown woman provided enough evidence to charge a seventh person in the case, according to Youngstown police.

Johntez Scrivens, 20, 12th Street, Campbell, was arrested Thursday by U.S. marshals on charges of aggravated murder, murder and conspiracy.

Crystal Hernandez, 23, died shielding her child Jan. 24, 2019, when dozens of shots struck her McBride Street apartment. Hernandez was fatally shot in the neck while she held her 2-year-old son, who was not harmed, according to police.

Hernandez’s boyfriend, the father of the boy, and others, were feuding for days over stolen drugs and money before the retaliatory shooting, according to police.

Detective Sgt. Rick Spotleson of the Youngstown Police Department said police knew early on from surveillance footage that seven people were involved in the Hernandez killing, not just the six who were indicted earlier.

Police also knew Scrivens, but they needed additional evidence before they could charge him. That additional evidence came from the other six defendants.

“This was the last guy we needed to identify,” Spotleson said.

Gabriel Smith, 19, of McBride Street, Hernandez’s boyfriend, was sentenced in October to five years in prison for his role in a series of shootings before the shooting in which Hernandez was killed. He pleaded guilty in September in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to felonious assault with a firearm specification.

Authorities said Smith was part of a three-part conflict that day.

First, a group of males fired gunshots at Smith. In retaliation, Smith and Lavante Perry, 24, of Woodcrest Drive, shot a man at a home on McGuffey Road. Third, the group of males went to a McBride Street apartment looking for Smith and Perry in retaliation for the McGuffey shooting.

Smith and Perry were not there, but Hernandez was.

The agreement requires Smith to cooperate with authorites in the cases against the six men charged in Hernandez’s murder.

Burton McGee, 20, and Martize Daniels, 19, pleaded guilty earlier this month in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. McGee pleaded to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy and a gun specification. And, Daniels pleaded guilty to felonious assault and a gun specification, but new information that arose during the ongoing investigation indicated that Daniels was “not involved” in the Hernandez killing, according to prosecutors. Daniels’ charges are connected to a shooting earlier in the day Jan. 24, 2019, targeting Smith, 19.

Perry was shot to death at a Youngstown home last month.

Marquise Torres-Willis, 22; Joquaun Blair, 22; Maurice Redrick, 20; Larenz Rhodes, 19, are also charged in the case.

Blair, 23, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy and a gun specification.

That leaves Torres-Willis, Redrick and Rhodes to stand trial March 30.

rfox@tribtoday.com