Pat Kerrigan, executive director of the Oak Hill Collaborative, is shown at his office last week. He and a fellow Mahoning Valley Crime Stoppers board member are planning monthly podcasts to call attention to cold criminal cases in Mahoning and Trumbull counties....Submitted photo

YOUNGSTOWN — Two members of the board of Mahoning Valley Crime Stoppers, Jon Leseganich and Pat Kerrigan, have announced the start of a monthly podcast that they hope will better explain the role of Crime Stoppers while helping solve Mahoning Valley cold cases.

Leseganich is a commissioned Mahoning County sheriff’s deputy, and Kerrigan is executive director of the Oak Hill Collaborative, which “advances digital equity and quality of life” by helping people become more adept at using the internet, computers and other technology.

The two introduced their new project in the first podcast recently. It is being produced at the Oakhill Collaborative in the county’s Oakhill building. They will produce a podcast about once per month. Each will have guests from law enforcement providing information on cases that have not been solved in hopes of getting the word out on the case.

“We think this could be an exciting new law enforcement tool to help reduce the backlog of unsolved crimes in the valley,” Kerrigan said.

The first podcast explained that Crime Stoppers is an idea that began in New Mexico in 1976 when a detective sought to solve the shooting death of Michael Carmen at a gas station in Albuquerque by making a video reenactment and offering a reward for anyone who called in to provide information helping to solve the crime.

Two people were arrested within 72 hours, Leseganich and Kerrigan said. It led to the creation of Crime Stoppers and led to Crime Stoppers USA, Crime Stoppers International and others.

Today there are 1,700 Crime Stoppers organizations in 23 countries, including Mahoning Valley Crime Stoppers. There have been 800,000 arrests in 1.2 million cases and there has been $90 million in rewards paid out, they said.

The way it works is a person contacting Crime Stoppers is given a code. They can remain anonymous. The code allows the tipster to contact Crime Stoppers to find out updates on the case and find out if a reward is available for the tip.

If the person is eligible for a reward, they are directed to a financial institution, where they provide the code and receive the money. They do not have to provide any type of identification to receive the reward, Kerrigan said.

Leseganich said the benefit to the way Crime Stoppers is set up is that a person with information about a criminal case might not want anyone to see them giving information to police. But through Crime Stoppers, they give that information anonymously and never have to be identified.

Calls to Crime Stoppers are never recorded, no caller ID is used and the caller remains anonymous, Kerrigan said.

To kick things off, Kerrigan related the details of a tip that greatly assisted law enforcement with a murder case in Warren late last year. It was the early Nov. 11 murder of Ashante Fisher-Kirksey, 26.

Noel Flores, 26, pleaded guilty March 5 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to involuntary manslaughter, improper discharge of a firearm and three counts of second-degree possession of a firearm in a liquor permit premise. He will be sentenced later.

Prosecutors said Flores went to a home on Francis Avenue in Warren and was involved in a confrontation that led to an exchange of gunfire between Flores and an individual in the home. In the crossfire, Fisher-Kirksey was struck in the neck by a bullet fired by Flores. Fisher-Kirksey was a mother of four children.

Kerrigan said Warren police had identified Flores as a suspect, but they did not know where he was. A Crime Stoppers tip, however, alerted authorities that Flores was in Florida.

That led to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office going to a home Nov. 30 of a woman who had recently moved to St. Petersburg from Youngstown. On Dec. 5, officers with the U.S. Marshal’s Service Office Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force made a traffic stop on the woman and returned to her apartment with a key and arrested Flores.

The Crime Stoppers tip was crucial in finding Flores, Leseganich and Kerrigan said.

The phone number for Mahoning Valley Crime Stoppers is (330) 746-CLUE (330-746-2583). The website to watch the first podcast is www.youtube.com/watch?v=MopqE-0fv0M

Have an interesting story? Call reporter Ed Runyan at erunyan@vindy.com