YOUNGSTOWN — The remarks made during Jacoby Walker’s sentencing hearing Wednesday in the February 2022 shooting death of Isiah J. Helms, 22, addressed a variety of issues related to the challenges he had growing up in Youngstown, including drug abuse resulting from a serious burn.

But when it was time for Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito to pronounce Walker’s sentence of 8 to 10 1/2 years in prison, it came down to something fairly simple: Prosecutors felt Walker’s involvement was part way between the person thought to be the shooter and the person who simply drove the car.

Walker, 20, pleaded guilty last month to involuntary manslaughter and a gun specification for his role in the case. His offense was a first-degree felony. He was 16 at the time of the killing, but his case was bound over to adult court so he could be tried as an adult.

Helms’ body was found at Mount Hope Veterans Memorial Cemetery, 1945 Liberty Road, on Feb. 2, 2022, but police said he was killed at a house on Lilburn Avenue on the East Side several days before that.

He was reported missing Jan. 30, 2022. He 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.

The person prosecutors believe was the shooter was Jamiyah M. Brooks, who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with a gun specification and tampering with evidence in May of 2024 when he was 21 years old. Brooks, who was 18 at the time of the offense, was sentenced to an agreed-upon 17 to 22.5 years in prison.

Nathaniel Austin Jr., 36, of Idora Avenue, pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in the case and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2024. He was described in court Wednesday as the person driving the car.

Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Rob Andrews told D’Apolito that between Jan. 30, 2022, and Feb. 2, 2022, Walker, Brooks and Austin “were involved in the homicide of Mr. Helms.”

He said the “allegations would be that … Walker had a female juvenile lure Mr. Helms into a car, possibly of a relationship. They then drove to a house, where basically Mr. Isiah Helms was ambushed. The evidence against Mr. Brooks was quite strong,” Andrews said.

“Mr. Austin’s involvement to the best as we could tell, he was the one who provided the transportation both to and from the house where he was killed, and then they drove Mr. Helms to a location where his body was dumped,” Andrews said.

As for Walker, “The evidence we have was unclear. He was definitely involved. Whether he was a shooter or not, we would be unable to show that. And exactly what his involvement was is unclear,” Andrews said.

“He could have been found guilty of murder or just as easily found not guilty, and that is why we reached this middle ground,” Andrews said of the prosecution-recommended sentence for Walker of eight to 10.5 years in prison.

Walker was only arrested in 2024, and that is why his case is being completed more than a year later than Brooks and Austin, Andrews said.

When asked by the judge to classify Walker’s level of fault, Andrews agreed it was “middle,” Brooks’ fault was “main,” and Austin’s was a “lesser player.”

Rosalyn Helms, Isiah Helms’ mother, told the judge before sentencing that she doesn’t know what led the defendants to kill her son.

“But this has left me very empty inside,” she said. Isiah was “bullied from the seventh grade to his senior year,” she said, calling her son a “bright young man, caring, sweet, kind kid.”

SENTENCING DECISION

Toward the end of the hearing, D’Apolito acknowledged there were remarks given by a husband and wife from Charlotte who knew Walker starting when he was a small boy and remarks by Walker’s attorney, John Shultz, about Walker’s “difficult childhood and upbringing.”

D’Apolito said Walker’s father died, and Walker endured trauma as a result of being badly badly burned on the neck in an electrical accident. He acknowledged “all of the potential he has as a person. By all accounts, at his core, he is someone who has tried to do the right thing.” He said, “There are people out there who care about him, so much so that they would come from far away to give statements about his character.”

But D’Apolito said he has to “weigh those factors against the loss that this (Helms) family has had to endure,” saying they “also have to deal with the trauma and heartbreak of losing a loved one.”

He said the positive information he received about Walker “cannot and does not justify, it does not weigh substantially against the harm that he caused,” along with his co-defendants.

D’Apolito said he is giving Walker a “step back that the parties agreed that I should,” that Walker was not the shooter or “just the driver. He was somewhere in between.”