YOUNGSTOWN — A Youngstown man will serve eight years in prison for a “love-triangle” murder that was originally ruled a suicide.

Keylon White, 30, of First Street, pleaded guilty Friday morning to one amended count of manslaughter in the Aug. 9 shooting death of James Merchant, 28, on the city’s North Side. White originally was indicted on murder.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeny heard arguments about sentence length from both Mahoning County assistant prosecutor Patrick Fening and defense counsel Ron Yarwood. Merchant’s family also spoke.

“Instead of being an upstanding person, and confronting people with your problems directly, you blind-sided someone, and took their life for no reason,” said Miya Merchant, the victim’s sister. “Now we have three kids here with no father. It was a senseless act, and what was accomplished? It was all for envy, jealousy and hate.”

Merchant said her family and White’s have known each other since before the two men were born, which Fening said makes the crime all the more tragic.

“It did not need to go this way. It could have been resolved through a conversation, or even a fist fight,” Fening said. “Instead the victim was gunned down while sitting in the front seat of his car.”

Fening argued for a sentence of 8 to 12 years.

Yarwood suggested four to six years, and noted that Merchant had a gun with him in the car and that he had sent some concerning text messages before the shooting. Yarwood said his client also has a very mild prior criminal record. Man gets 8 years for North Side shooting

When police first responded to the Alameda Avenue shooting, the woman at the center of the feud said she and Merchant had been arguing, and that morning Merchant texted her that he was going to shoot and kill her and himself.

She said he texted her “yard or front porch” and “my blood is on your hands.” She said she heard two gunshots and ran with her child upstairs. She said she “didn’t know he was outside her house,” she said, according to the report.

When she looked outside a couple minutes later and saw the car in her driveway, she went out “to see what was going on,” found him shot and called 911.

The death was originally investigated as a suicide, but following an autopsy by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office it was ultimately investigated as a homicide.

White received credit for 239 days he has already spent in jail, and will be under post-release control for two to five years after his release.

Reporter Ed Runyan contributed to this report.

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