High Speed Chase On Market St. And Southern Blvd. Ended After 30-Year-Old Man Was Found Shot To Death
     
      BY JOHN A. DARNELL JR.
      associate editor
      The arrest of a 24-year-old man, Jerome Tubbs, in connection with the Jan. 6 murder of 30-year-old Michael Kosarich, of Struthers, Oh. was in large part aided by the review of images obtained from hundreds of hours of surveillance tapes captured along Market St. and Southern Blvd. during an investigation led by Boardman police detectives Greg Stepuk and Chad Doran.
      The surveillance tapes were obtained by police from local businesses along both roadways.
      Kosarich’s bullet-riddled body was found by police in a Ford Fusion he was driving near 2:30 a.m. in a parking lot at 5205 Market St., at the intersection of Indianola Rd. He was pronounced dead at 3:08 a.m. at Mercy Health/Youngstown.
      Surveillance cameras taken near the time Kosarich was found indicate his car was being closely followed by a dark-colored sedan during a chase the police said reached high speeds along Market St. and Southern Blvd.
      As police reports indicate, a camera on a business in the 5400 block of Market St. shows Kosarich’s car heading towards Youngstown (going north) at a high rate of speed, closely followed by a dark-colored sedan “at a similar speed.”
      That claim is substantiated by a surveillance camera from another business that was reviewed by Sgt. Glen Paetton.
      “Around 2:23 a.m., the Ford Fusion is traveling along Market St. going northbound at a high rate of speed. It appears as though the Fusion is being chased by a dark-colored sedan,” Sgt. Patton said.
      Surveillance tapes indicate the chase ends when the Fusion pulled into the parking lot of 5205 Market St. The dark-colored sedan then exits the parking lot, travels one block and turns left onto Stanton Ave. going to Southern Blvd. where it is believed at one time, the two cars once traveled.
      A railroad line follows Southern Blvd. and security cameras along the line provided police with additional details in their investigation.
      And then, a dark-colored sedan, believed to be involved in the chase, was captured at Sheetz at Boardman-Poland Rd. and Southern Blvd. It was there that surveillance tapes captured a man exiting the car and entering the business, where the man walks into the bathroom, discards something in the trash, and then leaves the business.
      That evidence also led police to believe a Chrysler 200 car was indeed the dark-colored sedan involved in the chase and on Jan. 21, veteran Boardman Ptl. Evan Beil located the car at 235 Mathews Rd. He also saw the car two days later at a car wash at 6410 South Ave. and said “I was able to positively identify the driver as [Jerome] Tubbs,” adding “Tubbs was wearing a camouflage jacket…the same jacket from the video at Sheetz” on Jan. 6.
      Tubbs made an initial appearance on the murder charge last week in Boardman Court where he entered a plea of not guilty and was awarded a court-appointed attorney (at public cost).
      Tubbs was arrested on Feb. 16 at the home of his mother at 291 Potomac Ave. in Youngstown by members of the U.S. Marshal’s Service.