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Track Team Out for Jog, Stumbles on Crime Scene

By Stan Friedman

ASHTABULA, OH (June 8, 2005) - High school track coach Warren Dillaway and seven teenagers who were on a training run have found themselves in the frightening middle of a criminal case after happening on an attempted murder in progress and then watching the case work its way through the legal system.

As a longtime volunteer with the youth group at First Covenant Church in Ashtabula, Dillaway has experienced his share of chaos and excitement, but nothing prepared him for the afternoon run with members of the Lakeside High School track team last February.

Dillaway and the boys were in the middle of their run when they reported seeing a car cut across two lanes of traffic and stop alongside a man walking beside the avenue. The driver reportedly leaped from the car, screaming at the pedestrian and demanding money before shooting the man in the stomach. Authorities later determined that the assailant was angry over money allegedly owed him.

The victim was only slightly injured when the bullet hit a belt buckle or other object, Dillaway says. But no one knew that at the moment, nor did they expect the assailant would suddenly run away.

What Dillaway and team members did know was that they were within a few feet of the two men. Some students stopped while others scattered in different directions, Dillaway recalls. The coach gathered the students together to give police information on the crime.

Dillaway has been a photographer and reporter at the Ashtabula Star Beacon for 18 years, but says he had never been at a crime scene that quickly. Though he had covered trials in the course of his job, he had never been personally involved.

The assailant, who was captured shortly after the incident, confessed to the crime shortly before the trial was scheduled to start and the students were not forced to testify. Several had feared reprisals if they testified, Dillaway says. The trial date also would have come at the most inopportune time as the students would have been required to testify on the same day as the league championship track meet, in which they were scheduled to compete.

Today, Dillaway thanks God that all were safe and that the justice system worked. To read Dillaway's account as published in the Star Beacon, please see Journey for Justice.

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