HOWLAND - A California man found dead last week in the Howland apartment on Basswood Avenue N.E. where he was staying was stabbed and shot multiple times.
''Perforating stab wounds of the neck accompanied by multiple gunshot wounds of the head,'' Trumbull County Coroner Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk reported Monday on the death of Donyell Johnson.
Germaniuk released the information as a matter of public record. Howland police Chief Paul Monroe had declined to release details on how the man died while the report was pending.
Johnson, 40, of Long Beach, Calif., had at least a half-dozen aliases, according to Monroe, including the name Martin Reed, which he apparently gave to a girlfriend, and the first name of Keith, that was given to a landlord or neighbor.
No arrests have been made in the crime, and Monroe said he has ''a strong suspect in mind,'' but declined to discuss that since the investigation is ongoing. He also refused to say if the suspect is local.
A search warrant for the home on Basswood remains sealed in Trumbull Common Pleas Court, and Monroe said he hopes to release more details within the week.
Police tracked down Johnson's identity through fingerprints and tattoos. Monroe said he wouldn't reveal anything he knows about Johnson's criminal record since the information didn't come to him by way of a public record. Police in Long Beach also declined to discuss the background information on the murder victim.
A friend of Johnson, Nicole Shaughnessy, discovered the murder with a neighbor Wednesday morning and called 911. She told police that he was supposed to bring dinner to her home Tuesday night, but he never showed up.
She called 911 about 10 a.m. Wednesday after she peered into the home at 3909 Basswood Ave. N.E., and saw blood all over the walls, according to a tape of the call. The front door window pane was broken out, and the door was open when she arrived, she said.
"I looked through the window and there's blood everywhere," Shaughnessy told the dispatcher. "There's blood all over the walls."
When investigators went to meet with the Shaughnessy and her attorney early Thursday, she could not be found. She was not at her Tod Avenue S.W. home, according to police officials from another department.
Friday though, Monroe said he never considered Shaughnessy missing and he declined to discuss matters pertaining to the woman whom he described as a potential witness in the case.
Forensic investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation's mobile Crime Scene Unit, the Trumbull County Coroner's Office, Trumbull County Sheriff's detectives, Howland police and Trumbull County prosecutors are all investigating the case.