“There is no definitive pattern to the deaths over the past five days,” Lt. Patrick Welsh said. “They all appear to be crimes of opportunity ... that there is no reasonable explanation for.”
The latest shooting, this one at an apartment complex at 2701 N. Gettysburg Ave. occurred shortly before 11 a.m. Timothy Thomas, 41, of Springfield, was dead at the scene. Another man was taken to a local hospital with non-life threatening gunshot wound, according to Welsh.
What started the shooting is unclear. Police were interviewing the apartment resident and the surviving man.
“At this time, it could have been a home invasion. It might have been revenge. We just don’t know,” Welsh said.
“I was cleaning my car out and the guy who lives in (apartment) 14 said somebody tried to rob him,” said Guy Abrams, property manager of the apartment complex. “He had just wounded the guy, and he said call 911 so they could assist the guy who had been shot.”
“I seen them two guys walking through here, but I didn’t think nothing of it,” Abrams said.
Police do have a glimpse of a motive for two separate slayings Saturday in Dayton and an early morning shooting Tuesday in Harrison Twp. The township shooting was part of a robbery, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Major David Hale said. The victim apparently stopped to help a woman motorist with car problems when he was robbed and shot, Hale said.
The two victims Saturday both had a history in the drug trade. Corey Mitchell, 34, was shot from ambush shortly after 9 p.m. when he pulled up to his home on North Paul Laurence Dunbar. His 11-year-old daughter was wounded. Shawn Ball, 24, was killed when a car pulled up to his on Salem at Kenilworth avenues and riddled the car with gunfire from an assault rifle.
And Thursday, April 27, police were called to Fernwood Avenue apartment to check the welfare of a resident. Inside they found the bodies of a man and woman. Police believe J.B. Jones, 49, first shot his girlfriend, 31-year-old Nicole Cochran, then took his own life.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2290 or dpage@coxohio.com.
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