Staff photo / Ed Runyan Attorney Walter Madison, left, stands with Andre McCoy Jr., 22, during McCoy’s hearing Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The parties discussed the massive amount of pretrial evidence prosecutors have turned over to Madison. McCoy is charged with aggravated murder in the 2020 death of Rowan Sweeney, 4.

YOUNGSTOWN — Andre McCoy Jr., 22, recently arrested in the September 2020 killing of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney, appears to be facing a large amount of evidence ready to be used against him.

McCoy is indicted on aggravated murder and other offenses that could result in the death penalty if convicted. He was only arraigned a few weeks ago because he was at large until law enforcement located and arrested him Jan. 21 in Youngstown.

But prosecutors have had plenty of time to compile massive amounts of evidence against McCoy and his co-defendants, Kimonie Bryant and Brandon Crump Jr. Recently, prosecutors provided an 11-page document listing 252 documents and three one-terabyte storage devices full of evidence to McCoy’s attorney, Walter Madison.

The list describes documents, videos, interviews, phone records, photo lineups, subpoenas, detective notes, evidence reports and search warrants prosecutors have compiled and provided to the defense to view on a database available to the parties. Prosecutors must share that evidence– called discovery — with the defense.

Prosecutors filed the document so Madison can prepare for trial or plea in the case.

The document has only brief descriptions of the evidence, such as one reading “BCI & I — evidence results report No. 20-310241 11/19/2020.”

BCI & I is the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification, an agency run by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office that investigates cases and runs a laboratory that analyzes various types of evidence in criminal cases, including DNA analysis.

The case has been one of the most closely watched criminal cases in recent Mahoning County history. The charges accuse the defendants of committing an armed robbery and also shooting the boy to death in a home on Perry Street in Struthers. His mother and three other adults were in the living room when men came through the front door and shot everyone in the house, killing Rowan. Prosecutors have said they expected DNA evidence to show whether Bryant or Crump was the shooter.

During a pretrial hearing Wednesday, Mike Yacovone, assistant prosecutor, reported to Judge Anthony D’Apolito that prosecutors had turned over the evidence to Madison, as the judge ordered.

There also were some items prosecutors were not sure they had provided to the defense, so they notified the attorneys of about 60 more evidence files, he said. Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Paris noted that most of the files did not contain major items of evidence.

Yacovone said he thinks the file is complete with the exception of a few items related to McCoy’s recent arrest.

Madison then discussed the huge amount of work ahead of him to prepare for trial, possibly near the end of this year. Each of the three defendants will be tried separately.

“I have to make my way through the (evidence), at least to get a working knowledge,” Madison told the judge “When you just look at the amount of (evidence), you have to figure out where to start.” He added that he is “just picking up here while this matter has been going full speed” before he became involved.

He will be filing motions in the case at some point, but he’s not at that point yet, Madison said.

The judge said he understood that Madison will need time to get caught up. “I know how much information is out there,” D’Apolito said.

But D’Apolito noted that it will take Madison less time than everyone else because so much of the work on getting DNA evidence tested and getting the evidence file organized has already been done.

The judge and Yacovone noted that Crump is set for trial in late June, and Bryant is set for trial Sept. 11. “Right now, you’re third in line,” the judge told Madison of the time frame when McCoy will be set for trial.

McCoy will have another pretrial hearing at 11 a.m. Feb. 28.