YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Reports said there were two men standing over the body of Thomas Hawk on the cold March 8, 2001 night he was shot at a pay phone in the parking lot of a Belmont Avenue store.
Hawk, lying in a snowbank, could not tell police who they were. He could only make choking noises when the first officers, Christopher Bonacci and Anthony Marzullo, rolled up about 6 p.m. after they received a call for a man down in the parking lot of J&D Supermarket, 718 Belmont Ave.
An ambulance was summoned and Hawk, 65, was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center, where he was pronounced dead.
His case has not been solved.
Police were called by a man who was walking north on Belmont Avenue when he saw Hawk lying in the snow. That man called 911 on a pay phone on the opposite end of the parking lot, reports said.
A shell casing was found near Hawk’s head and a spent round was also found near his body, reports said.
Two witnesses on their way to class at Youngstown State University told police that they were driving east on the Eastbound Service Road when they passed up the parking lot where Hawk was lying on the ground with two men standing over him.
One of the men jogged over to a “junky” 90s model car which drove away, reports said. The other man was still standing over Hawk as the witnesses drove by on Belmont Avenue toward the university.
The two witnesses talked to a YSU police officer when they got to campus and then came back to the crime scene when their class was over, reports said.
An obituary for Hawk in The Vindicator said he had been a construction worker in the Youngstown area and he had five children. He was born in Sharon, Pa., and had also served for four years in the U.S. Army, the obituary said.
Hawk’s murder was one of 34 in the city in 2001. Detectives managed to clear or solve 15 of those cases.
Anyone with information on the March 8, 2001, murder of Thomas Hawk or any of the other cases listed below can call the Youngstown Police Department’s Detective Bureau at 330-742-8911 or CrimeStoppers Youngstown at 330-746-CLUE.
This story is part of a series of cold cases that WKBN is examining.
Do you have a cold case that you’d like us to look into further? Submit a cold case to WKBN.
2001 UNSOLVED HOMICIDES:
Jan. 12: Terril Mitchum, 18, of Columbus, is found shot to death a short distance from a home in the 100 block of Kenmore Avenue in a shootout that wounded two other men.
Jan. 22: Margaret Simons, 22 and Antoine Barnett, 27, are found shot to death in a car parked in the drive of a vacant 1350 Berwick Ave. home.
March 8: Thomas Hawk, 65, is found shot in the head near a payphone outside a 718 Belmont Ave. store.
March 31: Ernestine Fears, 50, is found dead in the road at Cantwell and Carson on the East Side. There are tire tracks on her body.
May 2: James Robinson, 24, is shot to death in a car he was riding in on Logan Avenue.
June 4: Clint Wright, 42, is found shot in the head at a business on Kenmore Avenue where he was a janitor.
June 17: Jerome Williams, 20, is shot to death as he walked in the middle of Hylda Avenue.
July 21: Alphonso James, 41, is found with gunshot wounds to the head at Lansdowne and Arch in a wooded area on the East Side.
Aug. 23: Vaschon May, 24, is found shot to death in the woods behind a home in the 1000 block of Erie Street.
Aug. 26: Jonathan McClendon, 23, is killed in a drive-by shooting at Hudson and West Princeton.
Aug. 28: Anthony Bailey, 23, runs into a McGuffey Road bar and dies after being shot several times on Miami Avenue.
Sept. 28: Scottie Hornbuckle, 22, is found shot to death in his Parkview Avenue home.
Sept. 30: Terrence L. Green, 30, is found shot to death outside the former Uptown Theater on Market Street
Oct. 31: Hyland Burton, 23, is shot several times at a home in the 100 block of Tod Lane.
Nov. 1: Michael J. Green, 52, is found shot to death in the drive of a home in the 1700 block of Rosedale Avenue after being shot on Cohasset Drive.
Nov. 28: Ollie Hightower, 53, is shot in the head in his Sycamore Avenue home.
Dec. 17: Daniel Harris, 46, dies after being shot as he drives past the Party Pantry on Glenwood Avenue.
Dec. 23: Levon Hill, 49, is shot to death in his South Avenue apartment. Kent police find his vehicle two days later.