Staff photos / Ed Runyan .... Marquaysha A. Driver hugs her attorney, Frank Cassese, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts on all five charges she faced in her jury trial Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

YOUNGSTOWN — There was no mistaking the happiness of Marquaysha Driver on Thursday afternoon when a jury found her not guilty of any of the five charges she faced in her involuntary manslaughter and child-endangering case.

She turned to her attorney, Frank Cassese, and hugged him, a look of happiness and relief all over her face. The trial was in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, where Judge Anthony D’Apolito presided.

Driver, 31, who testified on her own behalf Thursday morning, was looking at more than 10 years in prison if she had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the Oct. 22, 2023, shooting death of her 7-year-old son, De’Vonte Housley Jr. A child endangering conviction could have added more time.

The boy and his brother got a hold of a gun that Driver moved to an area on the mantle in the family’s living room the night before. Driver said during her testimony she thought the gun would be safe until her brother could come take back the gun. The boys were playing with it when it went off, striking De’Vonte.

A Mahoning County grand jury indicted Driver on the involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangering, alleging that the boy’s death was caused by Driver endangering him by “violating a duty of care, protection or support.”

DRIVER’S TESTIMONY

Driver testified Thursday as the last witness in the trial, describing how a handgun got onto the mantel in her living room — the gun that was accidentally fired into the boy. Driver said she discovered the gun in her house in early on Oct. 22 after completing hair cutting appointments that lasted until 3 a.m. or later, after her children were asleep.

She found the gun on the “edge of the mantle.” It was the first time she realized the gun, which her brother had bought a day or so earlier, was in her house, she testified.

She moved the gun from the position where she found it to the center of the mantle, which she described as being about 10 inches wide and behind the top part of a 75-inch television on top of two end tables.

“When I realized (the gun) was there, I pushed it in the middle of the mantel to where I couldn’t reach it … no more,” she said. “And I have a lot of junk mail and stuff like. That’s where I put the junk mail. I put it on top of it to where I couldn’t see it (anymore). And when it got to where I couldn’t see it (anymore), I thought it was OK.”

Cassese asked her to stand up at the witness stand and demonstrate how she stood to put the gun in the center of the mantel. She stood with her hand reaching out away from her body as if reaching toward the mantle, her hand a little higher than the top of her head.

She agreed when Cassese asked if moving the gun was a “short-term solution.” She said she also called her brother after that to tell him to get the gun out of her house “as soon as possible.” Even though it was around 3 a.m., she knew she could reach him because he worked the midnight shift as a home health aide, she said.

She thought her kids — then ages 9, 7, 5 and 4 — could not reach the gun, she said.

Cassese asked Driver where she keeps batteries in her house because of earlier testimony about batteries. She agreed that she puts them “out of reach” of her youngest child because she puts them in her mouth. But they are kept “in plain sight,” she said. If they were on the mantel, they would be in “plain sight,” she agreed.

She said after she called her brother, she took a shower and laid down in bed with her youngest child upstairs and fell asleep, wearing only a towel because she was tired, she said.

When Cassese asked her what woke her up the next morning, she became emotional. “I woke up to a pop. And then my son came running … and I was like ‘What was that?’ He was like ‘I shot my brother,'” she said. She went to the downstairs bedroom where the boys slept and found De’Vonte injured on the floor.

Earlier in the trial, jurors were told that De’Vonte and his older brother went to look for batteries for the TV remote and found the gun on the mantel. They brought it to their bedroom. Testimony indicated that De’Vonte was holding the gun, with the barrel pointed at him, when his brother pulled the slide on the weapon, causing it to discharge and shoot De’Vonte in the chest.

PROSECUTOR QUESTIONS

Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Jennifer Paris asked Driver where the children were the morning of the shooting. She said De’Vonte, two of his brothers and one sister were in the same bedroom downstairs.

When asked about where batteries are kept, she agreed that sometimes they are on the mantle and sometimes elsewhere. When Paris asked if Driver told Youngstown police she knew that the gun on the mantle was loaded, Driver denied saying that.

But after watching her videotaped interview with the police, she agreed that she did tell the Youngstown police that she knew the gun was loaded when it was on the mantle.

When asked if it’s true that the mantle was low enough for one of her children to “reach up there,” Driver disagreed. “One of them, in fact, did get up?” Paris said. Driver responded that one of the boys “could have pulled up a chair or something.”

Then Paris asked, “You acknowledge that you left a loaded gun unattended in your house with four small children in it, correct?”

Driver responded, “I tried my best to hide it.” But when Paris asked the same question again, Driver agreed she did leave a loaded gun unattended.

Paris asked, “You would agree with me that it’s unsafe for you to leave a loaded gun laying around your house, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Driver agreed.

“You would agree with me that De’Vonte would still be alive if you would have locked that gun up, wouldn’t you?” Paris asked.

“Yes,” Driver said.

“You would agree with me he would still be alive if you just would have unloaded the gun?” Paris asked.

“I didn’t know how to do that,” Driver said.

“You could have asked somebody, your brother maybe?” Paris asked.

“Yes,” Driver said.

“Do you agree with me that De’Vonte would still be alive if you would have stored the ammunition separate from the gun, wouldn’t you?” Paris asked.

“Yes,” Driver answered.

“If you had done any number of simple things, unloading it, taking it with you and keeping it on your person, locking it in a car, storing it outside, any number of simple options, could have saved De’Vonte’s life, wouldn’t it?” Paris asked.

“Yes,” Driver answered.

“You would agree that it is terribly unsafe for a 7 year-old and a 9-year-old to have access to a loaded gun?” Paris asked.

“Yes,” Driver said.

When it was time for the defense to question Driver a second time, Cassese asked just one question: “Marquaysha, you would have never imagined that would happen by leaving that gun there?”

“No,” she said.