Four slain in area in 14 hours
The deaths of two people found in the parking lot of a Truro Township apartment complex were the third and fourth homicides in Franklin County in a 14-hour period.
County deputy sheriffs were called to the Cross Key apartments in the 5000 block of Chatterton Road around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday on a report of a shooting. A man and a woman were found with gunshot wounds and pronounced dead.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was called in to assist, as is the procedure when there is more than one homicide victim.
The victims were identified as 27-year-old Carl Peay II of the Northeast Side and 24-year-old Mia Leanna Shane, originally of the Toledo area.
Sheriff’s office detectives said the shootings are not believed to have been random, and they think that at least two suspects were involved.
The killing of Peay and Shane came after two homicides in Columbus on Tuesday.
Michael Fair Jr., 25, of Gahanna, was found shot in a vehicle in the 800 block of Wellington Boulevard on the Near East Side about 10:25 a.m. Tuesday. Police said the shooting is believed to have been a drive-by, and detectives are looking for a full-size black pickup truck with fancy wheels. The driver is believed to have been a Black male with a skinny build, short, wavy hair and a dark complexion.
Less than four hours later, 21-yearold Elijah Lowe of the East Side was found shot multiple times outside an apartment in the 3600 block of Allendale Drive on the East Side.
Lowe was shot around 1:55 p.m., according to a 911 call. Police said a woman and at least two young children were on the front porch of the building just feet away from the shooting.
According to a recording of a 911 call obtained by The Dispatch, the woman said she didn’t know who the shooter was. The same woman can be heard on the call telling someone in the background to “get the dope out of (Lowe’s) pockets” as the call is transferred to paramedics.
Another caller, who told dispatchers that she “didn’t want to get involved,” lamented a lack of assistance for Lowe from those who were nearby when the shooting happened.
“There’s a thousand people over there,” the caller said. “Everybody that was out there with this man watched him be shot, and they all ran off and left him on the daggone ground.”
Fair’s and Lowe’s deaths are the 95th and 96th homicides in the city in 2020.
The city had 105 homicides in all of 2019.
No arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon in any of Tuesday’s four homicides. Anyone with information is asked to call Columbus police detectives at 614645-4730, sheriff’s office detectives at 614-525-3351, or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS. bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner