Staff photo / Ed Runyan Kevin Kramer, a forensic scientist for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, is seen testifying Tuesday in the Brandon Crump Jr. aggravated murder trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

YOUNGSTOWN — The work of Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation scientists and local police officers were on center stage Tuesday as the Brandon Crump Jr. aggravated murder trial nears its end.

The trial resumes this afternoon with closing arguments and jury deliberations possible by the end of the day. The last witness Tuesday testified about the autopsy for 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney. It may have been the last prosecution witness in the case.

Crump, 21, is accused of being the triggerman who burst through the front door of a home on Perry Street in Struthers on Sept. 21, 2020, killing Rowan as his mother begged for his life. His mother, Alexis Schneider, and three other adults in the home, also were shot, but survived.

Investigators found text messages suggesting the incident began as a robbery, as Andre McCoy Jr., one of the wounded adults, texted Kimonie Bryant to tell him that another man in the home, Yarnell Green Jr., had lots of cash.

Prosecutors said Bryant came to the Struthers home, but he brought along Crump, who was then 17. No matter what, Bryant, McCoy and Crump are responsible for Rowan’s death, prosecutors said. Bryant and McCoy already entered guilty pleas in the case. Green, then-boyfriend of Schneider, was shot to death outside a downtown Youngstown bar in September 2022.

Among the witnesses to testify Tuesday was BCI forensic scientist Kevin Kramer, who said he analyzed four .45-caliber bullet shell casings recovered from the Perry Street home, as well as 12 bullet shell casings recovered from a home on Ravenwood Avenue in Youngstown, and found that they were fired from the same gun.

He testified that some of the common types of guns that might have fired the shots related to the shell casings are a Taurus pistol, a Springfield Armory pistol or a Ruger pistol.

Under cross examination by Lou DeFabio, Crump’s attorney, Kramer agreed that there are other manufacturers whose pistols have similar rifling patterns that also could have fired the shots. Kramer said Taurus and Ruger pistols are submitted to the BCI lab frequently, so he would agree they are commonly used firearms.

Another BCI scientist, Angela Krestian, testified later Tuesday about the DNA analysis she did on the four bullet shell casings and a glove from Ravenwood Avenue.

She said the casings were “not of sufficient quality for comparison due to insufficient data.” But she said the DNA that came from the black glove was Crump’s. She said she took a swabbing from the glove, and the DNA from it was compared to the DNA “standard” taken from Crump, and the DNA was found to be “a mixture of one major contributor, and that contributor was consistent with Brandon Crump’s DNA profile.”

She said the chance that the DNA came from anyone other than Crump is “1 in 1 trillion.”

Under cross examination by DeFabio, Krestian agreed that there is no type of test that can tell her how long the DNA had been on the glove.

Earlier Tuesday, retired Youngtown police crime scene investigator Mark Crissman testified that he investigated an incident at 161 E. Ravenwood Ave. in Youngstown on Aug. 17, 2020. He collected various pieces of evidence, including the four bullet shell casings and the black glove discussed by Kramer and Krestian, he said.

No additional information on the nature of the East Ravenwood incident was given.

Late in the day Tuesday, Capt. Matt Haus of the Struthers Police Department gave an overview of the investigation he and fellow Struthers Capt. Dan Mamula headed up, including some of the challenges of being a small police department handling a major criminal case.

One of the first hiccups was when officers went to the hospital to show a “lineup” of 10 male subjects to Cassandra Marsicola, one of the adults in the house who was shot. She said she was 60 percent sure the male she picked out was the shooter.

However, the male’s photo was pulled from a state database, and he had no connection to the case, Haus said. There was a male in the lineup who police had been told might be connected to the case, Haus explained.

With BCI extracting information from the cellphones of the adults in the home, investigators learned that another of the adults, Andre McCoy, had been texting with someone named K.B. just prior to the shootings. They learned K.B.’s phone number and learned K.B. was Kimonie Bryant, who was arrested soon thereafter in the case.

Police did not get to interview McCoy because he was so badly injured in the shootings. He was not expected to live, Haus said. Investigators also learned that Bryant and McCoy were friends.

After Bryant was arrested, they went to two addresses associated with Bryant, 54 Poland Ave., and 63 Cassius Ave., both in Youngstown, and gathered evidence. They also learned of someone named B-Thump, the street name of Brandon Crump Jr., 21, who was 17 at the time of the killing. Crump also was known as Brandon McDowell because McDowell is his father’s last name, Haus said.

Under questioning by Mike Yacovone, county assistant prosecutor, Haus said the Struthers Police Department was under great pressure to make an arrest in the “high-profile case.”

Investigators learned that McCoy was planning to rob Green, who had thousands of dollars in cash with him in the house, according to earlier testimony. Green was Schneider’s boyfriend.

On the day Schneider identified Bryant as the shooter, Haus said he went there only to show her a single photo of Bryant to make her aware that “we had someone in custody who was responsible for her injuries, as well as the death of her child,” he said. Schneider later identified Crump as the shooter.

Yacovone asked whether the investigation became unwieldy because of the complications of having personnel from other police departments assisting, and Haus said it did.

“You had other departments essentially shoving lineup photos in these girls’ faces during the infancy of this investigation, correct?” Yacovone asked.

“Yeah,” Haus agreed. “We had a lot of agencies that wanted to help.”

He agreed that the experience forced agencies that work together to solve homicides in smaller communities to make changes in the way they operate. “They have used us as a model to make adjustments and corrections if another incident should happen,” Haus said. A major problem was that there was “no chain of command” for the investigators, Haus said.

Yacovone asked if Marsicola deleting text messages between her and McCoy was a setback. Haus said it was because it delayed finding out that McCoy was part of the robbery. All four adults in the home were shot, including McCoy.

“He’s a victim, she’s a victim, correct?” Yacovone asked of McCoy and his girlfriend, Marsicola. “Yes,” Haus said.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but now he’s a suspect, and she’s a suspect, correct?”

“That’s correct,” Haus said.

“So you’ve got victims who become suspects, and you don’t know who else might be involved in that,” Yacovone asked. Haus agreed.

Haus said he had to work differently to get cooperation.

“I’m getting information that people were not being forthcoming and honest when it involves the death of a child. Sometimes you have to increase the pressure when you’re interviewing people,” Haus said.

One thing he did was keep a photo of a smiling Rowan with him when he was talking to witnesses. “I showed his picture to (Marsicola), and I explained to her that Rowan’s counting on her to be honest with us,” Haus said.