Staff photos / Ed Runyan Jamiyah M. Brooks, 20, stands with his attorney, David Betras, during Brooks’ plea and sentencing hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday.

YOUNGSTOWN — When 22-year-old Isiah J. Helms was shot and killed in February 2022 at a house on Lilburn Avenue on the East Side, it was the second time Rosalyn Helms lost a son to gun violence in Youngstown.

She gave a victim impact statement Wednesday before Jamiyah M. Brooks, 20, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with a gun specification and tampering with evidence in Helms’ death. Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney sentenced Brooks to an agreed-upon 17 to 22.5 years in prison.

One of Brooks’ co-defendants, Nathaniel Austin Jr., 35, of Idora Avenue, pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in the same killing and was sentenced to three years in prison. His hearing took place after Brooks’ plea and sentencing hearing.

During Brooks’ hearing, Helms said her son “was a good child. Isiah was a special kid.”

She said she forgave Brooks “for what he has done that cost the life” of her son, but “17 years is not enough.” She became emotional as she spoke, standing over a box containing her son’s ashes. She said Brooks’ family will still be able to talk to him over the next 17 years, but “I have to talk to my son in this box for the rest of my life.”

Helms also mentioned this was the second son she has lost to homicide. Another son, Jamie M. Helms-Crum, 16, was shot to death May 20, 2006, in Youngstown. His body and the body of Troy Barlow, 16, of Youngstown, were found in the backyard of 1630 Park Vista Ave. on the West Side. Both teens were shot in the head, according to archives from The Vindicator.

Pat Fening, assistant county prosecutor, said Wednesday that Helms was killed on the back porch of the home where Brooks lived on Lilburn Avenue, and his body was found Feb. 2, 2022, at Mount Hope Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery, 1945 Liberty Road. He died from gunshot wounds, according to the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office.

Helms was reported missing Jan. 30, 2022. His body was found using information provided by the public and through an investigation by police, according to a police department news release. Helms was last seen leaving his Plaza View Court apartment on the East Side just before 3 a.m. Jan. 30. He was believed to have been picked up by an unidentified person in a vehicle, police said.

Brooks and another male, 17, were charged in the homicide. Austin and another juvenile were not charged with the killing. Both juvenile cases are still pending.

Brooks was indicted on aggravated murder in Helms’ killing, but the charge was amended to voluntary manslaughter, a first-degree felony with a gun specification.

Brooks was sent to Heartland Behavioral Healthcare, where he was treated for mental health issues after he was found not competent to stand trial in January 2023. But he was “restored to competency” after treatment, Fening said. Fening said he could not provide additional information on the case because of pending cases involving the two juveniles. Brooks was 18 years old at the time he was charged in Helms’ death.

BROTHER’S MURDER

According to an appeals court ruling, Jamie M. Helms-Crum and Barlow were at the home of Robert Floyd, who was also 16 at the time, on May 20, 2006, when a discussion took place regarding marijuana. Floyd was upset by the idea a robbery might occur at his mother’s house, so he insisted that Devon Pinkard and Adrian M. Sims leave that residence.

However, the same group of boys met up later at a different Youngstown home so that Floyd could fix a scooter. While Floyd was fixing the scooter in the front yard, Helms and Barlow went to the backyard of the vacant house next door, the appeals court ruling states.

Thereafter, Floyd and Pinkard heard gunshots coming from the backyard, and Sims emerged from the backyard. Floyd and Pinkard told Pinkard’s mother to call an ambulance, according to testimony at a juvenile court hearing discussed in the ruling. Helms and Barlow suffered fatal gunshot wounds. Sims was convicted of two counts of aggravated murder in the killings and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He remains in prison with a parole hearing in 2039.

Pinkard was convicted of two counts of aggravated robbery.

SEPARATE BROOKS INCIDENT

Brooks also was indicted in January 2022 in a separate incident on charges of tampering with evidence, carrying a concealed weapon and obstructing official business. That case appears to be still pending.

That matter began at 2:44 p.m. Dec. 28, 2021, with a call of two men firing rifles at a house on Ivanhoe Avenue on the South Side. Officers spoke with individuals, who wished to remain anonymous, who said they recorded the incident on video. The video showed two men running from the street in front of the home and then into a house.

Officers spoke to the people in the home, including Brooks, and were told someone in a vehicle went past the home and fired, possibly just into the air. Officers found multiple shell casings of two calibers in the road.

Officers were told by concerned residents that while they were collecting shell casings, two men went out the back of the house. Officers went in that direction and detained a juvenile and Brooks, who was headed back toward the original home, according to a police report.

Meanwhile, someone called 911 to report having video of a man discarding a firearm nearby. The person said a motion detector alerted him or her to the activity. The person provided a video of the man putting a gun into a sweatshirt. The person found the sweatshirt and weapon hanging from a tree nearby. Officers collected the items, and also determined the man in the video was Brooks, the report states.

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