Walter Madison, left, interacts Wednesday with his client, Andre K. Bailey, 40, who is on trial on aggravated murder and other charges in the Oct. 17 shooting death of Reynaldo Hernandez, 24, who authorities believe was killed at home on Bott Street on Youngstown’s East Side.

YOUNGSTOWN — The driver of an Amazon truck testified Wednesday as the first witness in the aggravated murder trial of Andre K. Bailey, 40, that he was new to the East Side of Youngstown when he went there to deliver several packages Oct. 17 on Bott Street.

The driver, who asked not to be identified in the newspaper, said he went to the front door at 2337 Bott St., put the package on the porch, took a photo of it, as he always does, and then “I heard shots ring out. I heard shots. I heard a small, like scream, and that is when I returned to my vehicle,” he testified.

He said he could tell the shots and scream were coming from inside the house.

It is the location where authorities believe Reynaldo Hernandez, 24, was killed. Bailey, 40, is accused of participating in the killing.

“I returned back to my van. Before I could even get it into drive, that’s when a vehicle pulled out of the driveway and actually backed into me. It looked like they were fleeing the scene as well,” he said. “I took off to a safe location.”

The driver said he drove a couple of blocks away and called the Amazon dispatch, and he was notified to drive to a nearby fire station. He’s not sure where the fire station was.

“That was actually my very first time ever on that route,” he said.

He called 911 and firefighters came out and had him come inside the fire station.

A Youngstown police officer arrived, and the Amazon driver told him what happened. He was not able to complete his route because the officer asked him to remain at the fire station so he could ask follow-up questions later if necessary.

He remained there for four hours.

Under cross-examination by Walter Madison, Bailey’s attorney, the driver said he thinks he heard four or five shots.

“It sounded like someone was pounding on the door,” he said. “I thought at first somebody was just telling me to get out of there. It did sound like it came very close to the door.”

After the gunshots “echoed a little bit, the sound registered” as gunshots, he testified. He believes the other driver pulled into the driveway “about three seconds after I parked on the road.” He did not see anyone get out of the vehicle that pulled into the driveway, and he did not see anyone inside the home.

He said he did not know whether the driver of the other vehicle was a man or woman, but he suspected it was a woman only because of the long hair the person had. He said he told police he thought the driver was a woman.

As part of the testimony of a Youngstown 911 supervisor, the jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court listened to the driver’s 6:24 p.m. 911 call, in which he said, “I just saw someone get shot and they … ran into my car. I’m an Amazon delivery driver.” He told the 911 call taker the car that hit him was a silver or gray sport utility vehicle.

He said as soon as the shots were fired, “the female in the vehicle, she was by herself, I think she was scared and flew out of there and crashed right into me.” He told the call taker he did not think the SUV driver was “involved because she was scared, like she wanted to get out of there.”

Hernandez’s body was found the next day on Liberty Road near Wardle Avenue in the area of the Mount Hope Veterans Memorial Cemetery on Youngstown’s East Side. It is not far from Bott Street.

The trial resumes this morning. Retired Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge W. Wyatt McKay is presiding over the case as a substitute for Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum.

The next several witnesses were Youngstown police officers who responded to the shooting, including Sgt. Josh Kelley, who spoke with the Amazon driver at the fire station and then went to the house where the crime took place with tools that could be used to make entry into the home, including a sledge hammer and pry bar.

Other officers were there, Kelley testified under questioning by Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor John Juhasz. The officers told Kelley nobody would come to the door, and they were going to force open the door to get in.

Kelley said he was in charge of the back of the house, and when other officers went in through the front door, “occupants of the house came through the back door and surrendered to officers.” Other officers pointed out there was blood on the driveway, which he avoided contaminating, Kelley said.

Youngstown police Lt. Ryan Laatsch testified that he was advised that four people from the home were later placed in police cruisers, but he does not know that personally.

Under cross examination by Madison, Laatsch testified that two cell phones found at the scene were photographed by crime scene investigators on the rear porch, but at some point the phones “disappeared.” He said he does not know what happened to them. “I was not there when that happened. I had left the scene when that happened.”

Laatsch testified that he does not know how many officers were there when the phones went missing and agreed that a cell phone can contain useful evidence.

“You can’t tell us who those phones belong to, can you?” Madison asked.

“I cannot,” Laatsch said.

“You can’t even tell us which officer absconded with the phones,” Madison asked. Juhasz objected to the question.

“If that’s what happened,” Madison added, apologizing for the question. McKay sustained the objection.

Madison asked Laatsch if someone came out of the woods at the rear of the house and took the phones off the porch, would that be poor police work.

Laatsch agreed it would have been a poor police “perimeter” if that happened.

Madison continued to bear down on Laatsch over the cell phones, asking if someone removed cell phones from a crime scene, “Isn’t that a crime?”

“That is a crime,” Laatsch replied.

“And wouldn’t they be arrested if you were there?” Madison continued.

“If someone was removing evidence from a homicide crime scene, I would arrest them,” Laatsch said.

Madison wanted to know if Laatsch or any other officer tried to locate the cell phones.

“I did not go looking for the cell phones that disappeared,” Laatsch said. He does not know if someone else looked for the phones “because I left and when I came back I was told they were gone. I don’t know the response that happened once it was discovered they were gone by officers at the scene,” Laatsch said.

Detective Sgt. Rick Spotleson, a longtime Youngstown detective who now supervises road patrol officers, testified that he was among officers who went into the basement of the home and found a man and woman hiding in a “crawl space.”

Madison asked Spotleson what was done to look for the missing cell phones, and Spotleson said he and another officer looked around for the phones, but did not find them.

Spotleson said he and another officer also were called away from the Bott Street investigation to another location to check on a woman and learned that she had fallen off of her couch and was unable to get up for “at least two days.”

Madison said he had not heard prior to this testimony that Spotleson and another officer left Bott Street to take another call. Spotleson said there was no report filed because there was no “suspicious activity.” He later testified that his actions in assisting the woman were captured on his body camera. He said there were still four officers on Bott Street when he left.

Spotleson later agreed under questioning by Juhasz that having to handle the call involving the woman was “kind of an unfortunate situation because you can’t leave until the ambulance comes, correct?”

“That’s correct,” Spotleson said.