Staff photo / ED Runyan Davelle Heath is seen with his attorneys, Patrick Moro, right, and Joseph Moro, left, during Heath’s sentencing hearing Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

YOUNGSTOWN — Davelle L. Heath, 29, a Youngstown native who tried to kill a woman he knew years earlier outside of her home on Truesdale Avenue on the East Side was sentenced to 12 to 13.5 years in prison Thursday.

Heath, who was working toward a Ph.D. in England at the time of the shooting, was convicted at trial in February of attempted murder with a gun specification and felonious assault. The shooting was March 21, 2022.

“The gravity of the crime committed by the defendant cannot be overstated,” Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Katherine Jones told Judge Anthony D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Thursday. “The defendant came into town from London and then left his family and approached the victim in her own driveway. He had a conversation with the victim, who he had known from his childhood. And when the victim’s back was turned, Davelle Heath shot Katrina Turner in her head,” Jones said.

“Miraculously the bullet that hit the victim in the head did not kill her, but seriously injured Katrina, leaving a deep wound in her skull and part of her scalp blown into her yard. Despite these injuries, the victim wrote what she believed was her dying declaration — the name of the person who shot her. And that was Davelle Heath.”

Jones said the woman is “still suffering from the effects of that injury today.” The victim did not attend the sentencing hearing.

Heath has no previous criminal history, but “that pales in comparison to the heinousness of the defendant’s actions, the defendant’s lack of remorse and (his) unwillingness to accept responsibility for his crime. There is no more serious form of the crime of attempted murder than shooting someone in the head,” Jones said. She asked Judge Anthony D’Apolito to sentence Heath to 14 to 16.5 years in prison.

Patrick Moro, one of Heath’s attorneys, told the judge that Heath is planning an appeal, which is why Heath did not make a statement before sentencing.

Moro mentioned that Heath’s family had obtained “letters from folks all around the world who have interacted with Davelle … and they speak to the value of his character.” The judge noted that the letters have the names of the authors on them, but they are not signed. The judge later said he would still consider them authentic.

Testimony during Heath’s trial indicated that Heath, his mother and his siblings lived with the victim when Heath was young.

Before announcing the sentence, Judge D’Apolito said the case “kind of confounds me,” saying Heath was “by all accounts accomplished already” at the time of the shooting, having lived in Louisville, Atlanta, Sudan, London, Uganda, “things that some people would never even dream of doing.”

Yet Heath came “from the streets of Youngstown, and that takes a lot of effort, a lot of support, and he deserves recognition, someone by all accounts was on his way to doing many great things.”

He added, “That person comes back to Youngstown and tries to kill someone. The jury found it and I understand. The jury verdict, the evidence supported it,” he said.

“It’s hard to understand why the defendant would do this. But for the victim not dying, this would have been almost the perfect crime, coming in from London, here for a night or two, killing someone and being gone before the authorities even have a lead. If the victim would have died, I don’t know if this ever would have been solved.”

The judge noted that the victim is actually “part of the community essentially” that Heath had worked to empower in his work in England.

Heath testified during the trial that the focus of his Ph.D. studies is legal research. He said he was able to continue his studies despite his pending criminal charges and is in his final year. He said his thesis is on “male victims of sexual assault by women.”

He said he was working for Survivors UK, a nonprofit organization in England that works with “nonbinary, trans and men who have been sexually assaulted.” His job was to help individuals through the legal process, along with other things.

Under questioning by one of his attorneys, Patrick Moro, Heath said the last time he had seen Turner was when he was a child. Turner was known as Donald Turner at that time. Heath said he did not know Turner had transitioned to a female until after this case arose.

Turner, a transgender female, testified that she dated Heath’s grandmother from 1994 to about 2006. At one point, when Davelle Heath was about 9 years old, he and his mother moved in with Turner. Davelle was about 12 years old when he and his mother moved out, she said.

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