Staff file photo / Ed Runyan Kaylon Adams, right, is seen with his attorney, Lou DeFabio, at Adams’ plea and sentencing hearing in March in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. He was convicted of another homicide Wednesday in Summit County.

YOUNGSTOWN — Kaylon Adams, 33, of Youngstown, was found guilty of a homicide Wednesday in Summit County Common Pleas Court, his second homicide conviction this year.

Adams, who lived on Tyrell Street on the West Side of Youngstown in early 2024, was convicted by a Summit County jury Wednesday of murder with a gun specification and being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to life in prison.

He will be eligible for parole after serving 21 years for the Summit County offense, which was killing Roland Williams, 41, of Akron, outside of the Pour House Bar in Akron in March 2024, according to a press release posted on the Summit County Prosecutor’s website.

In April, Adams’ co-defendant in the Summit County crime, Endessia Atkins, 31, pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and tampering with evidence, both third-degree felonies. She was sentenced to six years in prison.

In March 2024, Adams stalked and pursued Williams while Williams was outside the Pour House, the release states. Adams approached and fatally shot Williams multiple times. During the altercation, Adams sustained injuries to his knee and foot, the Summit County press release states.

When questioned by investigators at the hospital, Adams and co-defendant Atkins provided false information about Adams’ identity and the details of the shooting. However, footage from multiple security cameras near the scene and FLOCK cameras confirmed Adams as the shooter, the Summit County press release states.

In addition, shell casings collected from the scene were matched to a firearm recovered in separate investigations involving Adams by Mahoning County authorities, it adds.

On March 25, 2025, Adams pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault and improperly discharging a firearm into a habitation in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Judge R. Scott Krichbaum sentenced Adams to 23 to 28.5 years in prison. His crime in Mahoning County was killing Christian A. Oliver, 29, and shooting an innocent woman bystander in the legs Nov. 19, 2023, on Zents Avenue on the North Side of Youngstown.

Adams’ attorney, Lou DeFabio, and county prosecutors spent more than three hours negotiating the plea before Krichbaum accepted Adams’ guilty pleas and handed down the sentence jointly recommended by prosecutors and the defense. Adams got credit for 409 days of jail time while awaiting trial.

Youngstown police said Oliver’s body was found in the middle of the road.

In court in March, Assistant County Prosecutor John Juhasz said Oliver was shot eight times and a woman was shot in both legs. He said Oliver and Adams were “walking down Zentz Avenue … and Mr. Oliver was struck” with eight bullets. The female victim “was up on her porch, and that is when she was shot in the legs.”

The woman told Krichbaum she was locking her security door at her home when she heard gunshots.

She said a male told her, “You need to get back in your house, and I said ‘Huh?’ And the next thing I knew, he was shooting, both of my legs.” She said she was standing in her house, “so the bullets he used went through my security door.”

The woman said, “I don’t hate him, but I’ve been hurt ever since. I have marks that won’t leave.”

“I just want to say I’m going to pray for him, because you are taking lives that … I want to go when God calls me home, not because somebody took my life,” she said.

The involuntary manslaughter conviction was for killing Oliver. The charge started as aggravated murder but was amended as part of Adams’ plea agreement.

In a press release, Mahoning County Prosecutor Lynn Maro stated that the plea agreement was reached “after issues arose surrounding a key piece of DNA evidence against the defendant. The decision to make a plea offer was made after input and consent of the victims and their families.”

CONNECTIONS

Adams was arrested in early May 2024 in the Youngstown homicide, about six weeks after he committed the Akron murder on March 17, 2024.