YOUNGSTOWN — Jury selection that was scheduled for Friday and testimony that was supposed to begin today in the triple murder case of a couple and their infant son has been postponed to 8:30 a.m. Jan. 24 because of a COVID-19 infection.
The aggravated murder trial of Shainquon Sharpe, 25, of Columbus, and Taquashon Ray, 25, of Youngstown, was reset after an attorney in the case tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
The trial will be heard by Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Sharpe and Ray are accused of killing Edward Morris, 21; his 3-month-old son, Tariq Morris; and the baby’s mother, Valarcia Blair, 19. The killings took place Nov. 7, 2018, on the South Side.
Authorities called the shootings an “ambush” for which Morris was the target. Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said in November 2019 that the baby and Blair were “with Mr. Morris in his vehicle” at the time.
Gains said Morris knew Sharpe, and the two men had arranged to meet. Sharpe and Ray “opened fire, resulting in the three deaths,” Gains said. Morris was armed and was able to fire at least one shot, Gains said.
Sharpe and Ray were indicted on multiple counts of aggravated murder, murder, tampering with evidence and other offenses. If convicted of aggravated murder, Sharpe and Ray could get a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In addition to interviews with witnesses, police used digital and forensic evidence to link Sharpe and Ray to the killings, Gains said. It took about year for police to file charges in the case.
“Given the innocence involved with the child and the young lady, it made this all (the) more shocking as a far as a murder goes, so given those aspects of it, we certainly were not going to allow this to rest,” then-Youngstown Police chief Robin Lees said when the charges were announced in 2019.
The city experienced a spike in homicides at around the time of the triple murders — eight in less than a month. At the time, Lees said the common thread in the surge of killings was drugs.
Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said the day the three were killed was “one of the toughest days for me as mayor, and as a father and grandfather. To hear about a young life taken at such a young age.”
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