YOUNGSTOWN - A man found shot to death in the Sharon Line neighborhood just before midnight Tuesday had been arrested last weekend, was wounded in shootings twice before, and last month was inside a South Side home pelted by gunfire.
Police found Ryan Slade, 20, of Cornell Avenue and Keara McCullough, 19, of Clearmont Avenue shot to death in a car behind 2950 Megan Circle.
Slade had been wounded in shootings in 2010 and 2007. He was inside a Cornell Avenue home while it was hit by gunfire several times on Aug. 27, but was not injured.
Police Chief Rod Foley said detectives are working on the assumption that someone had been targeting him for awhile. ''He definitely had a beef going on with somebody,'' Foley said.
It appears that McCullough was just an innocent bystander, the chief said.
The two were in a car driven by Slade when they were shot. The car crashed into the back yard.
On Saturday, Municipal Court records show that Slade was arrested on a charge of driving under license suspension at Rush Boulevard and Auburndale Avenue. He was also arrested on driving under suspension Jan. 12 and for loud music from a motor vehicle on March 22.
On May 5, 2010, Slade told police he was at the playground behind Taft Elementary School on the South Side when he heard gunfire. He was hit in the stomach and leg.
In 2008 when he was 15, he told police he was walking in the 300 block of East Boston Avenue, also on the East Side, when he felt a pain in his leg and realized he had been shot.
He said one area investigators will look into is the shooting Aug. 27 at the home Slade was staying at.
''I think that's a good direction for our detectives to go on,'' Foley said.
One thing investigators will also be looking at is what Slade and McCullough were doing in the Sharon Line neighborhood of the East Side, a mostly rural area of the city near state Route 616.
Foley said it is not easy for strangers to find their way around that part of the city.
''You have to kind of know your way around there," Foley said. ''There's no reason to be out there unless you live there.''
Foley would not say if they think whoever shot at Slade's car was on foot or in another car.