Killer of key figure in Rowan case sentenced to 11 to 15 years in prison
Staff photos / Ed Runyan Johnny Serrano Jr. is shown during his sentencing hearing Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in the early Sept. 18, 2022, shooting death of Yarnell Green Jr., 32, on the sidewalk of West Federal Street in downtown Youngstown. Both men had been in the O’Donold’s Irish Pub a short time before the shooting and had a dispute.
YOUNGSTOWN — The sentencing hearing of Johnny Serrano Jr., 24, lasted a long time Thursday. Because Serrano’s October trial did not reach a normal conclusion there were still things to sort out.
Serrano took a plea to reduced charges before the second day of testimony began last month.
Left unfinished by prosecutors were videos the prosecution felt Judge Anthony Donofrio needed to see or see again before the judge sentenced Serrano to 11 to 15 years in prison in the shooting death of Yarnell Green Jr., 32. It was the amount of prison time prosecutors recommended.
Prosecutors played about 10 videos for Judge Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. They showed Serrano walking through downtown Sept. 18, 2022, with three friends on their way to O’Donold’s Irish Pub on West Federal Street. Serrano had a “satchel” that Assistant Prosecutor Marty Hume said prosecutors believe contained a handgun.
A surveillance video also showed an interaction inside the crowded bar between Serrano and Green that preceded Serrano shooting Green seven times on the sidewalk along West Federal Street.
Hume and defense attorney Dave Betras differed on how the shooting unfolded. Hume said Serrano “laid in wait” for Green to arrive at Hazel Street and shot him to death, while Betras maintains that Green pulled a gun before Serrano pulled his.
Hume said Serrano and his friends left the pub after words were exchanged between Serrano and Green. Serrano and his friends went past their vehicle and around the back of the business to the next intersection at Hazel and West Federal.
“They waited for the victim to walk down the street,” Hume said. “He was simply walking down the street with his girlfriend, leaving for the night when he was shot down.”
Betras had two witnesses he wanted the judge to hear — Serrano’s mother, who spoke of her son’s work as a bricklayer and later in breeding French bulldogs so he could be a “stay-at-home father.”
Betras also called one of the men who was with Serrano that night to testify, but Hume objected, and Betras withdrew his request for the man to testify.
Betras then mentioned aspects of the case that involved Alexis Schneider, the mother of Rowan Sweeney, 4, who was shot to death Sept. 21, 2020, at a home in Struthers. Scheider and Green, who were a couple, were among the four adults who were shot when Rowan was killed.
Green presumably would have been a key witness in the case of the remaining defendant in Rowan’s killing, Brandon Crump Jr., who is set for trial in February.
Schneider was at the pub the night Green was killed. She and Ashley Pratt, the woman Green was dating at the time of his death, got into a verbal dispute inside the bar, and that was what led to words being exchanged between Serrano and Green, Betras said.
Serrano knew Schneider from when they went to school together and Schneider was communicating with one of Serrano’s friends, Betras said. “In walks Ashley Pratt and Yarnell Green. Alexis Schneider and Yarnell Green used to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Alexis Schneider and Ashley Pratt start jawing, whipping everyone up. My client is just standing there. He doesn’t know Yarnell Green from the man on the moon,” Betras said.
“These girls whipped Yarnell Green up so much that he’s taunting my client to fight him,” Betras said. That is where Serrano made his biggest mistake, Betras said. He should have drove away, Betras said.
Betras questioned Pratt at the trial, but Pratt said Green never reached for a gun, moved his shirt or did anything to cause Serrano to shoot Green.
Serrano spoke to the judge and became emotional before he was sentenced on voluntary manslaughter with a gun specification and having weapons while not allowed.
“I did not want to kill nobody,” Serrano said. “I believed it would only be a fight. I genuinely believed I was allowed to carry a gun. I feel as if I am being punished because I did not want to die.”
Judge Donofrio noted that he heard a lot of testimony in the case and said the killing was “the culmination of some very bad decisions on both parties’ part, but especially on the part of Mr. Serrano.”
The judge said Serrano “engaged Mr. Green … who didn’t even know who this guy was.” The judge said it was unfortunate that two women in the pub were “whipping things up,” and that “led to this confrontation in the bar.”
Serrano deciding to confront Green after Serrano left the bar was a “terribly, terribly bad decision,” the judge said.
Serrano’s trial ended after one day of testimony. Serrano pleaded guilty the next day to reduced charges, ending the trial before all of the testimony had been given.
The aggravated murder charge Serrano faced was dismissed as part of Serrano’s plea. Serrano was looking at the possibility of spending life behind bars if the jury had found him guilty of aggravated murder. Serrano was not allowed to have a weapon because of a 2016 robbery conviction as a juvenile in Lake County.
Prosecutors said Serrano purposely killed Green around 1:40 a.m. Sept. 18 after he and Green separately left O’Donold’s Irish Pub on West Federal Street after Serrano and Green and their friends were asked to leave the bar. Serrano and Green had gotten into an altercation inside the business.
Serrano admitted he intentionally met up with Green on Federal Street to “‘go fight,’ and he had the specific purpose of confronting Mr. Green,” Hume stated in a filing in the case.
Green’s mother, Harriet Blair, said after the October plea hearing, her son was shot 15 times in two years — seven times by Serrano and eight times when he was shot at the same time as Rowan.
Green’s sister, Shayla Blair, told Judge Donofrio Thursday she raised Yarnell, and he is “just gone. I look out my door and wait to see my brother’s smile. I look at his kids, and I think I am a great aunt. I give them the world. But I still can’t give them that father figure because I’m a woman. But I will try and do my best as long as I have breath.”
Killer of key figure in Rowan case sentenced to 11 to 15 years in prison
YOUNGSTOWN — Johnny Serrano Jr., 24, was sentenced to 11 to 15 years in prison today after pleading guilty in October to voluntary manslaughter and a weapons charge in the early Sept. 18, 2022, shooting death of Yarnell Green Jr., 32, outside of a downtown tavern.
A full day of testimony had taken place earlier Oct. 18 in Serrano’s aggravated murder trial, but on Oct 19, Serrano came into court and entered a reduced guilty plea, halting the trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court gave Serrano the sentence recommended by prosecutors.
Green was a prominent figure in the 2020 killing of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney at a home in Struthers and presumably would have been a key witness in the trial set for February.
Latest News
Buildings evacuated in downtown Youngstown due to reports of gas odor
YOUNGSTOWN — City Hall, the Mahoning County Administration Building, and the Mahoning County Courthouse have all ...
Reported birth of rare white buffalo calf in Yellowstone park fulfills Lakota prophecy
Muslims start the Hajj against the backdrop of the destructive Israel-Hamas war
US Navy faces its most intense combat since World War II against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels
Demolition of the Parkland classroom building where 17 died in 2018 shooting begins
