David Lee Owens III, 31, male, Black/African American, left home in the early hours of August 3, 2025, and crossed paths with a crowd outside the Convenient Food Mart at Elm Road NE and Larchmont Avenue in Warren. By dawn the lot was alive with small talk, food, and a sidewalk dice game. A quarrel flared. In moments it was a fight, then a barrage: investigators would later count as many as 40 shell casings scattered between parked cars.
When officers arrived around 5:20 a.m., they found David Lee Owens III down near the corner, unresponsive, with multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to St. Joseph Warren Hospital, where he was pronounced dead; another man shot in both legs survived. The city moved within days to shutter the store as a public nuisance after a year-old agreement to curb late-night activity had frayed, and a judge granted a temporary closure while officials cited safety concerns and alleged violations.
Detectives pieced together the opening minutes from surveillance video time-stamped just after 4 a.m.: the dice game, a shove, a scramble to trunks and waistbands, then muzzle flashes slicing the pre-dawn. The footage, paired with witness accounts, guided Warren police, Trumbull County deputies, and ATF agents as they mapped firing positions between two vehicles and tracked who held what. Court filings say one participant fired a. 40-caliber Glock while another shouldered a Kel-Tec Sub 2000; casings and ammunition recovered at the scene underpinned later federal charges.
Within two weeks, investigators named a primary suspect. Savion Woodall, 23, of Warren, was charged with the murder of David Lee Owens III, attempted murder for the wounding of the second victim, and a slate of weapons offenses including having weapons under disability, carrying concealed weapons, tampering with evidence, improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle, and illegal possession of a firearm on a liquor-permit premises. He pleaded not guilty and, deemed a community risk, was held without bond by a Trumbull County judge while the case moved from arraignment toward grand jury proceedings and indictment.
Parallel to the murder case, federal prosecutors pursued others they said were armed at the scene. Two Warren men—Jumal Ellis Rowe, 32, and Rayjon Ray McElroy, 25—were indicted on firearms charges after investigators said Rowe was captured on video firing a. 40-caliber handgun while McElroy possessed ammunition despite a prior domestic-violence conviction. Weeks later, a federal grand jury charged a third man, Sean King, 37, with being a felon in possession of ammunition in connection with the same shooting. All three face potential federal prison time if convicted; the broader investigation by ATF and Warren police remains active.
In the quiet that followed, obituary notices marked the life of David Lee Owens III, 31, male, and the city’s papers recorded how a neighborhood’s familiar corner became a homicide scene before sunrise. The store stayed boarded while petitions to reopen circulated, hearing dates were set, and residents weighed the toll of a violent weekend that began with a dice game and ended with a death on Elm Road.
