Staff photo / Ed Runyan Darnell Jones, 21, of Austintown, seated at left, went on trial Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on charges of aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, aggravated burglary and being a felon in possession of a firearm in a Sept. 11 2023, homicide on Summer Street on Youngstown’s South Side. In the middle is defense attorney Mark Lavelle.

YOUNGSTOWN — Marshayla Walker of Youngstown testified Tuesday in the aggravated murder trial of Darnell Jones, 21, that the young man Jones is accused of killing Sept. 11, 2023, in Youngstown — Ty’Lend J. Lewis, 21 — was not her biological brother, but they were so close, she called him “my brother.”

She took a plate of food she made from her house to the home where Lewis lived on Summer Street on Youngstown’s South Side that evening, as she had before. But that night turned out very different.

When she arrived, she looked at the door to the home where her “brother,” Lewis, lived and saw “shoes.” She had texted with him a short time earlier to let him know she was getting close to his home. “I recognized the shoes,” she said. The toes were pointed up. She got out of the car and saw the rest of Lewis in the doorway.

“I called his name and he didn’t respond,” she said. “I proceeded to look around and check my surroundings.” She called 911, and the call taker told her to check for a pulse, and she could not find one. “I screamed and a neighbor came from across the street,” she said.

The neighbor was wearing medical “scrubs,” and she also checked for a pulse. Lewis’ arms were upward at about head level, she said. She took Lewis’ phone and looked at the contacts in it to see if she could call someone to tell them what happened.

Walker said she could see that Lewis had a handgun in his waistband. Part of the gun was sticking out. She took the gun and put it behind shelves in the garage, she said.

Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Anissa Modarelli, who was questioning Walker, asked her why she did that.

Walker said it was because of the way law enforcement treats a homicide when the victim has a gun. “We live in Youngstown, first of all,” she said. If a person is “caught with a gun,” the police think that person is “on the streets,” she said. When I realized he was (deceased), I took it off of him.”

She said she thinks the police take the attitude that “This is just another gang rivalry, war or whatever it is. We’re just not going to investigate,” she said.

She did tell police later that she had removed the gun from Lewis’ pants, she said.

Modarelli gave Walker a photo of a man on foot and a white car driving past him. She said it was taken at the time Walker was driving to Lewis’ home the night Lewis was killed. Walker identified the white car as being hers and said she remembered seeing the man. The jury could also see the photo on a video monitor. Modarelli said the photo came from neighborhood surveillance video.

“Can you describe that person?” Modarelli asked.

“He’s skinny, tall. I noticed he had like a fuzzy mask,” Walker said. “I remembered him.” She said it was surprising that someone would be wearing that type of cold-weather mask in such hot weather. “Looking at it, it looked real fluffy, like real hot,” Walker said. She was only a short distance from Lewis’ house, she said.

Under cross examination by defense attorney Mark Lavelle, Walker explained the situation when she had seen Jones. She said it was at a block party or “pop-up shop” she went to about a month before Lewis’ death.

“A shootout broke out at the block party,” Walker said. She had her gun with her. She said she has one to protect herself in the city. But she also wanted it because she was going to a block party. “When that (gunfire) started, I saw some boys I didn’t even know. I asked them to grab my firearm out of the car.”

She said before one of them could hand it to her, shots rang out. “So I told him to shoot back because there are kids in the house,” she said. The male she told to shoot was not Jones, but he and others were friends of Jones, she said. Lewis had been shot, so she checked on him, finding that he was OK. But when she went back, the guy with her gun was gone, and so was her gun, she said.

While trying to find out who had her gun, a person told her to contact Jones. She said Jones was trying to help her get it back. She said she did not know who shot Lewis that day.

Modarelli asked Walker if she knew what Jones looked like at the time she saw the man in the cold-weather mask. Walker said yes.

Modarelli asked if the person in the cold-weather mask “fit the general description” of Jones. Walker said yes.

“Same height?” Modarelli asked.

“Yes,” Walker said. It was not like she would immediately recognize Jones in the mask, but after Lewis was killed, Lewis’ father sent her a photo of Jones “wearing the same mask,” Walker said. She told Lewis’ father that was the mask the man was wearing the night Lewis was killed. Then she looked at Jones’ Instagram page and saw his “body type,” and “It looked like” the man in the cold weather mask was Jones, she said.

Opening statements in the trial began at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday after a jury was seated in the courtroom of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge John Durkin. In opening statements, Modarelli said Lewis was shot 19 times.

Jones was 18 at the time he was accused of killing Lewis. He was found shot to death about 7:10 p.m. Sept. 11, 2023, after police were called to Summer Street for a shooting. Lewis was deceased before police and ambulance personnel arrived, according to a Youngstown police news release. Youngstown police said in 2023 that investigative work, forensic evidence and cooperation from the public were keys to solving the case.

Youngstown detectives asked the public for help when Lewis’ death occurred. Jones had an address on Fifth Street SW in Warren at the time he was indicted. He also had an address on South Edgehill Avenue in Austintown, according to Mahoning County court records.