Staff photos / Ed Runyan... Vashuad D. May, 21, is in Youngstown Municipal Court after his preliminary hearing Wednesday. A witness testified that she knew May and that it was him who shot her fiance, Rawsheem Aponte, on Mohawk Avenue on the South Side in 2022, killing him.

YOUNGSTOWN — The fiance of Rawsheem Aponte said people in multiple vehicles chased the Camaro she, Aponte and their two children were in for 30 minutes before Aponte drove down the dead-end Mohawk Avenue on April 26, 2022, and was killed in a hail of gunfire.

Rikya Wright testified in Youngstown Municipal Court on Wednesday that the bullets were fired by Vashuad D. May, whom she knew from Youngstown. At the end of the preliminary hearing, Judge Renee DiSalvo found probable cause that May may have been responsible for killing Aponte and bound his murder charge over to a Mahoning County grand jury.

May, 21, is charged with murder and is being held in the Mahoning County jail in lieu of a $1 million bond.

“It was multiple cars. Every time we turned, they kept coming out of nowhere, they kept chasing us, and chasing us and chasing us and shooting at us,” Wright said under questioning by Youngstown prosecutor Kathy Thompson.

Because of the dead end, Aponte backed up the car and pulled into the front yard of a house.

She said May then came up to the front of the Camaro and “shot Rasheem, not once, not twice, over and over again in front of me and my kids, over and over again.”

Thompson asked the woman if she saw May in the courtroom, and she said yes and said he was wearing orange in his jail jumpsuit.

But the woman did not turn her head away after identifying May. She continued to hold his gaze for about another 30 seconds, even after Thompson had moved on to the next question.

Wright turned back to Thompson to answer that May was the only person who approached the front of the car. She recognized May at the time of the shooting, she said.

She said she looked May “in the eyes” when May was standing beside the car “about to shoot me next,” she said.

The woman said she jumped in the back seat “to save my kids.” Wright was shot in the leg by “whoever else was with him,” she said.

When Thompson asked the woman how many times May shot Aponte, she paused for a long time, finally answering “Enough, like seven, a lot of times.”

She said when May stopped firing, he went to another car and “he high-fived and cheered and laughed” with the other people before leaving.

Under cross examination by Aaron Meikle, who represents May, Wright said she did not know May “personally, but I know him enough to know what he looks like.”

She then answered that people behind their car were shooting at them at the same time May was shooting from in front of the car.

The woman said she did not know what type of clothing May was wearing. “That was a year ago. I don’t know what he was wearing, black. I don’t know. I know who he is, and I know what he did. I don’t care about what he had on.”

Wright added, “I know who killed Rasheem. I know. I was in the car,” she said as she got emotional and repeated the same sentences multiple times. She said she did not know who shot her.

She said May was at the hood of the Camaro after the Camaro stopped and started to reverse. He was “chasing” the Camaro and shooting into it. Some shots came through the windshield.

When Meikle asked if the shooter came to the passenger side of the car, Wright said, “I do not know. Fifty shots in the car. I don’t know. I don’t remember all that. I had a 3- and a 4-year-old in the car that I am trying to save. I’m getting shot at. I don’t know.”

Wright said she jumped into the back seat with her children when May approached the front of the car on foot. She said at one point, May walked to the passenger side of the car but did not shoot into the car from there.

Detective George Anderson of the Youngstown Police Department then testified that Aponte was dead when police arrived. Aponte’s injuries were “bad,” including wounds to his head, he said.

Anderson said the crime scene on Mohawk was large, and police recovered nearly 100 bullets and spent shell casings in the yard.

Police were able to obtain video from the house where the car came to rest, and spoke to Aponte’s fiance that night at the hospital.

The video shows the cars pass the house, “then moments later you can see the Camaro backing down the street and crashing into the front yard.” He said the video shows “a gentleman dressed all in black following the car, chasing the car. And once it comes to rest, he is shooting into the car.

“And then once he looks in and sees, he runs over and gets into a white Malibu and drives off,” Anderson said.

Anderson said he could not tell who the shooter was, but the man was compared to some other video the police had pulled off of the internet, “It could be said it was Vashuad.”

He testified that there was no DNA or fingerprints in the case. The video showed that the shooter was left-handed. The man fired into the passenger side of the car, Anderson said. The shooter had some cloth covering part of his face.

erunyan@vindy.com