Staff photo / Ed Runyan Akeem Hargrove, 33, is on trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on charges of aggravated murder and murder in the 2022 killing of Devin Bell, 26, at the South Avenue Shell gas station.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Akeem M. Hargrove aggravated murder trial resumed Thursday morning with an unusual twist.

Hargrove, 32, of Youngstown, is on trial on charges of aggravated murder and murder in the Dec. 22, 2022, shooting death of Devin Bell, 26, at the Shell gas station on South Avenue on the South Side.

But before the first witness was brought into the courtroom Thursday, Special Prosecutor Brad Gessner of the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office read a letter that the prosecution and defense agreed to share with the jury.

Gessner said the letter, which stated where authorities could find Hargrove’s co-defendant, Zachary Bair, was found May 22, 2024, on the bathroom wall of the Boardman Walmart.

That is strange enough, but the information in the letter proved to be true, and authorities went there and arrested Bair at that location on a warrant charging Bair with aggravated murder and murder.

The letter stated that Bair, now 35, could be located at a used car lot on Industrial Road in Youngstown. It stated that Bair “is wanted for murder” and gave the purported name of the letter writer, adding many allegations against Bair. Much of the letter talked about how the writer was close to a woman who the letter writer said Bair mistreated and threatened to kill, as well as threatened others. It ended with “Zachary murdered Devin Bell.”

On the back, it stated: “Return this paper to the cops.” Providing the letter to jurors is what is called a stipulation, which “generally means an agreement between opposing parties concerning a relevant point,” according to the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School.

Bell is facing the same charges as Hargrove, but he “confessed to committing the murder of Devin Bell with Akeem Hargrove,” prosecutors said in opening statements in the trial. Bair’s charges are still pending.

On May 24, 2024, a U.S. Marshal’s Service news release announced Bair’s arrest by the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force. It stated that on May 17, 2024, the Youngstown Police Department issued a warrant for Bair’s arrest and that on May 24, 2024, “with the assistance of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, the NOVFTF was able to safely take Bair into custody at a business in the 600 block of Industrial Road, Youngstown.”

At the end of testimony Thursday, Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito told jurors he expected the case to continue into the late part of the day today. It was not clear at the end of the day Thursday whether there will be any additional testimony today.

WITNESS

The first witness Thursday was Darren Boatwright Jr., who said Bell was his cousin and that Boatwright lived on Dickson Street near the Shell gas station on South Avenue in December of 2022. Boatwright had surveillance cameras outside his home that captured important aspects of the lead-up to the shooting and aftermath.

Boatwright said he expected to see Bell at Boatwright’s house that evening. “But when (Bell) called it was supposed to be right then. But he didn’t come right then,” Boatwright said.

Boatwright was home that night and heard gunshots. He went outside with his dog and into the gas station driveway. Right away, an officer told him to “Go back in the house,” Boatwright testified. He moved away and saw a black car that had been hit with gunfire. Nobody appeared to be inside the car.

Boatwright observed that the car looked like the one his cousin drove. Bell did not arrive at his house, so he called family members to ask if this was the car his cousin was using that night.

He called Bell’s mother, who came to the gas station. He told her he did not think Bell was in the car, Boatwright said. “But then I went inside to check my cameras and … at first I saw two figures running away from the gas station,” he said. Later he saw two people walking to the gas station “kind of hastily and then running from the gas station after the shooting,” he said.

Boatwright said his cameras did not capture the front of the gas station. But they captured his cousin in that car in the moments before the gunfire.

“I seen Devin had pulled onto my street, and he looked to turn into my house. And then he turned into the gas station real fast, pulled into the drive thru, sat there for a second and then reversed out real fast backwards. And then I couldn’t see his car anymore. It didn’t come from the gas station,” Boatwright said.

It was shortly after that he saw on the videos the “two figures going to the gas station and at some point those two figures running away from the gas station,” Boatwright agreed under questioning by Gessner.

The next day, he made notes of the significant moments captured on his videos and the time they happened so that he could show them to Bell’s mother. He said it would allow them to “discuss and figure it out.” He gave the paper to Bell’s mother and let her and her children look at the videos.

At 2:15 a.m., Bell’s vehicle came into view. Next to 2:16 a.m., Boatwright wrote “red Jeep.” Boatwright told Gessner that note was when “the vehicle that pulled into the street right after Devin had pulled to the gas station and went down.” He said he noted things that “stood out, that just seemed abnormal at the time.”

He said the “red Jeep went to the bottom of the street, and I could see all the way down the street on my cameras.” He said the Jeep turned. And then you could see the red Jeep without lights on and “two figures come walking down the street back there.”

He wrote “2:21 a.m.” and “running back,” meaning the point where the two figures “came running back from the gas station up the street,” he said. He noted that the police arrived at 2:37 a.m.

Boatwright explained that his videos will overwrite after three or four days. Gessner asked if Youngstown police came to his house to retrieve a copy of the videos, and Boatwright said “Yes, but it took quite a while for them to come by.” He said that by the time they came, the videos had already been overwritten and no longer were available to be viewed.

One of Hargrove’s attorneys, Stanley Booker, asked Boatwright if it’s correct that his cameras show Dickson Street and Samuel Street, and Boatwright agreed that they do. When Booker asked when the Youngstown Police Department became aware that he had the videos, he paused a long time but said “I believe so. I don’t recall.”