Dad came to see kids but started shooting (East Liverpool, Ohio)

Dad STEVEN J. YOUNGBLOOD had an extensive history of petty criminal activity--resisting arrest, drugs, criminal mischief. It is said that he was also barred from seeing his girlfriend and her three children, as he had threatened her before. But that apparently didn't stop him from trying to see the kids, and shooting the girlfriend and another woman in the process. The second woman has died.

http://www.salemnews.net/page/content.detail/id/534142/Father-came-to-see-kids-but-started-shooting.html?nav=5007

Father came to see kids but started shooting
September 23, 2010 - By JO ANN BOBBY-GILBERT

EAST LIVERPOOL - The man who allegedly shot two women Wednesday morning on Avondale Street had come to see his children, according to those on the scene.

But Steven J. Youngblood apparently brought with him a handgun which ended two lives, including his own, and which injured his children's mother, Rachael Wilcox. Also dead is 22-year-old Andrea Foster.

Police received a 911 call at 2:38 a.m. for the shooting at 1126 Avondale, the home of Wilcox's mother, Mary Grace.

Wilcox and her three children were staying with her mother, according to police. The children were in the house when the shooting took place, and Wilcox's 14-year-old brother saw his sister shot from the couch where he had been sleeping.

Police officials indicated counseling will be arranged for the teenager who witnessed the shootings.

According to Grace, her daughter had a contentious relationship with Youngblood, who she said was not allowed around her or the children. It was not immediately known whether a protection order was in place against Youngblood.

At one point, Grace alleged, Youngblood injured one of her grandchildren who was about 1 year old at the time.

Common Pleas Court records, however, show that it was Wilcox who pleaded guilty in 2009 to endangering children after being indicted in 2008 by the grand jury.

According to those reports, Wilcox's then-1-year-old child suffered head trauma consistent with being shaken and she failed to seek appropriate medical treatment for him.

She was sentenced to five years probation. She lived on McKinnon Avenue in the city at that time.

Wilcox's grandfather also alleged Youngblood had threatened to kill her at one point.

"This is why girls should stay away from these guys," Grace sobbed as she watched police and the coroner assistant conduct their investigation on her porch, where her daughter's 22-year-old friend, Andrea Foster, lay shot to death.

Police indicated they had had problems in the past with Youngblood, but not domestic violence-related. East Liverpool Municipal Court records showed just one 2008 case in which he pleaded guilty to obstructing official business, resisting arrest and criminal mischief while living on McKinnon Avenue in the city.

In 2004, Youngblood was sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to trafficking in drugs. At that time, he lived in Youngstown.

Residents living about a block from the shooting scene reported seeing a woman drive a car down Avondale just after the last shot was fired, jump out and run over to Youngblood, who was lying in the street near their yard.

They said they heard her tell someone on a cell phone they were in East Liverpool and Youngblood had come to see his kids.

Police indicated Youngblood's current girlfriend was not aware of his plans and had been told by him to stay up the street while he went to the house to see the children.

Once the bodies were removed from the scene, neighbors were seen carrying small children from the house next door toward waiting relatives. Officers said Grace arranged for them to go with relatives so she could get to Pittsburgh to see her daughter.

"I just want everybody's prayers and wishes for her and her three little babies," her mom asked tearfully.