WARREN - The man shot and killed on the northwest side late Saturday was due in court in October on a misdemeanor drug charge and already had served seven months in prison for a prior drug conviction.
Joshua Housel, 20, whose last known address was Dickey Avenue N.W., was found by a truck driver near the intersection of Parkman Road and Ward Road about 11:50 p.m., according to a police report.
The truck driver from West Virginia told police he was driving south on Parkman Road when he saw a man lying on the sidewalk in front of 353 Parkman Road N.W., which is near West Market Street.
Warren police Detective Wayne Mackey said Housel died early Sunday following surgery at Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital. He said Housel was shot once in the abdomen and may have been on his bicycle, which was found nearby.
Mackey said he and Detective Justin Soroka have questioned several people and have a good description of the shooter, but they did not have a suspect as of Monday afternoon.
Housel's address is listed as 851 Frederick St. in Niles on the police report, but Mackey said it's unclear if he lived there or at the Warren address.
According to Warren Municipal Court records, Housel was arrested May 18 on a charge of drug paraphernalia and was due in court for a pretrial hearing Oct. 2.
He was bound over to Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Nov. 20, 2006, on a charge of felony receiving stolen property, to which he pleaded guilty in March 2007. While awaiting sentencing, Housel was arrested by Warren police April 16, 2007, on charges of aggravated robbery and felonious assault. He was accused of shooting at a 16-year-old on Ohio Avenue who he had asked for drugs and demanded money, according to Tribune Chronicle archives.
Those charges, as well as additional charges of falsification and drug abuse-marijuana, were dismissed June 11, 2007, when Housel pleaded guilty to a bill of information charging him with aggravated drug possession stemming from a drug arrest April 26, 2007, according to court records.
He was sentenced to seven months at the Lorain Correctional Institution with the sentence to run concurrently with the sentence for his receiving stolen property conviction, Trumbull County Common Pleas Court records show.
Housel's death is the city's third homicide of the year.
On Jan. 6, Tristan Aguilar, 24, of Michigan died of a gunshot wound to the chest after he was shot in a yard in the area of Colonial Street and Adelaide Avenue S.E. Jason Allan Orr, 29, of Warren, was arrested in the murder the next day.
According to Trumbull County court records, Orr pleaded guilty in March to a charge of involuntary manslaughter with a firearm specification and a charge of having weapons under disability. He was sentenced to a total of four years in prison in April.
On April 3, Kendall Cherry, 18, was shot in the upper chest in the parking lot of the Hampshire House apartments on Fifth Street S.W. He was dead before officers arrived.
Last year, Warren recorded 12 homicides, including a double murder June 11 on Front Street S.W. There were six at this time last year, but a seventh occurred July 29, Tribune archives show.