YOUNGSTOWN — The unusual case of Davelle L. Heath, 30, who was sentenced to 12 to 16 1/2 years in prison in the spring of 2024 for attempted murder and felonious assault for shooting a woman in the head that he knew years earlier, comes up for a hearing Dec. 9 on whether Heath should get a new trial.

Heath was convicted at trial Jan 31, 2024. The victim testified that she recognized Heath when he walked up to her about 10:30 p.m. March 21, 2022, outside her home. Heath, his mother and siblings lived with her in her home on Truesdale Avenue on the East Side when Heath was a child.

They spoke casually for about five minutes before she turned to her car to put the key in the lock and opened it.

That’s when she fell to the ground, not hearing any gunshot or realizing immediately she had been shot. Heath looked at her momentarily and then left quickly, she said.

When the victim was asked after the verdict why she thinks Heath shot her, she said, “I have no idea,” but the way he did it was not uncharacteristic of the way he behaved as a boy.

“He used to do the same thing as a kid. He would smile at somebody’s face and then as soon as they turned around, he would attack him. He did the same thing to me. He waited for me to turn my back and attacked me.”

The victim, a transgender woman, and Heath’s grandmother had been in a relationship years earlier.

Heath took the stand in his trial, testifying to living in Youngstown as a boy but also living with his family in Texas and Kentucky later, graduating from high school and college in Kentucky. He testified he has a master’s degree and was working on his Ph.D. in law-related coursework in England.

HEATH WAS VISITING

He said on the date of the shooting, he was in Youngstown for a couple of days visiting his family and was at a birthday party for him and his stepsister at the Westside Bowl the night of the shooting.

Testimony during the trial indicated that Heath shot the victim in the head at close range, causing a part of the victim’s skull to come off and for her to fall to the ground. Prosecutors would call her injury a “very deep graze” that led to hearing loss and other disabilities.

The victim realized she was still conscious as she lay in the yard, calling for help and finally decided to get up, walk to her house and go inside, where she remained with her two housemates until police arrived.

The victim’s injuries prevented her from talking clearly, so she wrote Heath’s name on an envelope provided by a Youngstown police officer, along with the name and address of Heath’s grandmother, who lives up the street from Turner.

The victim said she did that “in case I died, they would know where to look.”

NEW EVIDENCE

The Dec. 9 hearing, which will be before Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito, is to hear evidence in Heath’s Aug. 15 petition asking for Heath’s convictions to be overturned or for him to get a new trial on the grounds of “newly presented alibi proof” and failure of his trial attorneys to bring forward evidence exonerating Heath.

A key component of Heath’s petition is evidence “fixing Mr. Heath at Westside Bowl (on Mahoning Avenue on the Westside of Youngstown) at 8:26 p.m. on the night in question,” Heath’s petition states. Attorney Rhys Cartwright-Jones filed the petition.

It states that Heath’s sister, Nadiya Heath, has a phone video containing data and GPS coordinates “that place Mr. Heath at that venue during the relevant window” of the shooting. She also provided details on the activities at the birthday party held at the Westside Bowl he attended that “extended” the birthday party “through approximately 11 p.m.”

The filing states that Heath’s trial attorneys, “never contacted (his sister), never collected the video and never prepared (his sister) to testify about the timing. These facts undermine identity and timeline, the core disputes at trial,” Cartwright-Jones’ filing argues.

The video “depicts birthday activities and Mr. Heath’s presence among family,” the filing states. Metadata associated with the video can be obtained by a “neutral examiner” and “confirm integrity through hash values, header structure and cross-checks against carrier logs,” the filing states. “This digital trail creates a verifiable anchor for the timeline.”

The “anchored timeline creates reasonable doubt about Mr. Heath’s alleged presence at (the victim’s) doorway at approximately 10:35 p.m.,” the filing states. “Family members continued bowling after cake, with three full games and multiple participants,” the filing adds.

“Nadiya Heath reports that the outing continued until approximately 11 p.m., which compresses any opportunity to reach (the victim’s) home before the shooting,” Cartwright-Jones’ filing states. Nadiya Heath is described in a prosecution filing as Davelle Heath’s sister.

PROSECUTOR MOTIONS

The Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office filed a Nov. 14 motion to “strike request for new trial” and a Nov. 14 motion to dismiss Heath’s petition.

The motion to dismiss the petition, filed by Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Kristie Weibling, contains a “statement of the case and facts” that came from the 7th District Court of Appeals’ earlier affirmation of Heath’s convictions.

It states that at the birthday party, Davelle Heath drank heavily. “Several witnesses testified that (Davelle Heath) left the bowling alley and arrived at his former stepmother’s house around 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The celebrants ate cake at the house before the visitors left. Davelle Heath and his stepsister stayed at that house that night, according to the statement of the case. Those who remained at the house that night testified that neither Davelle Heath or any of the others left the house that night.

The victim was shot about 10:35 p.m. that night. The victim could not speak because of the shooting, but she wrote Davelle Heath’s name and his grandmother’s contact information on a piece of paper for Detective Chad Zubal of the Youngstown Police Department.

PROSECUTION ARGUMENT

The prosecution filing argues that the petition fails to show any reason to question the outcome of the criminal case against Davelle Heath. The affidavit of Heath’s sister, which “directly conflicted several defense witnesses, scarcely renders a reasonable doubt about guilt,” the filing argues.

It states that Nadiya Heath’s affidavit “fails to address why this witness, who surely must have known of the case against her brother, did not come forward prior to trial. There is no claim that the witness approached counsel for (Davelle Heath) and was rebuffed.”

It adds that her sworn statements even “directly refute the alibi evidence presented by (Davelle Heath) at trial.” Davelle Heath and several defense witnesses testified that they and Davelle Heath arrived at Westside Bowl about 6:30 p.m. and that Davelle Heath and others left at 9 to 9:30 p.m. to go to Davelle Heath’s stepmother’s house.

But Nadiya Heath’s new evidence in the petition indicates that “party goers, including (Davelle Heath), did not leave the Westside Bowl until well past 11 p.m.”