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YOUNGSTOWN -- Two people who went to the witness stand Tuesday testified that a Sept. 8, 2020, fatal shooting outside a South Side bar was over a $40 debt.
Testimony will continue today in the aggravated murder trial of Traeshaun Turner, 26, accused of shooting 25-year-old Ishmael Bethel to death and wounding a teenage girl on a side street near the Southern Tavern on Glenwood Avenue.
Turner is charged with aggravated murder, attempted murder, felonious assault and having weapons under restrictions.
Before testimony began in the Mahoning County Common Pleas courtroom of Judge John Durkin, jurors were taken by bus to the shooting scene. Police officers last Sept. 8 had to maneuver through a large crowd of people who had gathered around the victim. Many of the police officers who testified Tuesday said they encountered a chaotic scene outside the bar shortly after 8:30 p.m.
According to testimony, Turner had been talking with Bethel and the teen girl outside the defendant's parked Chevrolet along Cleveland Street when the shooting started.
Breosha Moses, 25, of Youngstown, said she had been parked across Cleveland Street and saw the defendant pull a gun and start firing.
"When the shooting stopped, I peeked and saw a black Impala take off toward the bar," Moses told jurors. "Everything happened so fast, I was panicking."
The woman told jurors the victim staggered down the street and made it to the parking lot of the bar before he collapsed.
Moses testified she called 911 but did not talk to police officers until later that night.
"It was chaotic; there was too much going on," she said.
When Moses did get into the police cruiser, she said the picture of Turner "popped" on the dashboard screen and she recognized the man as the shooter.
Youngstown police officer Alex Whary, who went to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital trauma center when the shooting call went out, testified he interviewed the female victim, who was shot in the arm.
"It was hard to decipher, but she said that Traeshaun started an argument over money, something like $40," Whary said.
The teen victim also testified saying the argument with Turner was over money and under cross-examination from attorney Mark Lavelle, she denied that Bethel also had a gun.