Jury returns verdict in case of mother charged after child’s shooting death

Editor’s note: This story corrects the last name of the victim. We regret the error.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — A jury Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court found a woman whose 7-year-old son was shot and killed with a gun in her home not guilty of all charges.

After about two hours of deliberations, jurors found Marquaysha Driver, 31, not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and four counts of child endangering for the October 22, 2023, death of her son De’Vonte Housley, Jr., 7, in her East Marmion Avenue home.

De’Vonte was killed after he and his brother found a loaded gun on a mantle above a fireplace in her home.

Driver testified on her own behalf earlier Thursday about how she woke up to every parent’s worst nightmare

“I woke up to a pop,” she said as she was sobbing. “My son came running in the room. I asked, ‘What was that?’ and he was like, ‘I shot my brother.'”

Testimony began in her case Wednesday before Judge Anthony D’Apolito after a jury was seated Tuesday.

The state rested its case Wednesday, and the defense rested its case Thursday after Driver’s testimony. She was the only witness called by the defense.

Prosecutors say Driver was reckless because she knew a loaded handgun was in her home, yet did not take steps to keep it away from her children, one of whom ended up shooting another.

The gun belonged to her brother, who she accompanied two days before De’Vonte’s death to a Boardman sporting goods store, where he bought a shotgun and a 9mm pistol. Somehow, the pistol was left at her house.

Dressed in all black and talking in a slow, at times somber voice, Driver recounted the days leading up to De’Vonte’s death under direct examination from her attorney, Frank Cassese. The gallery was full of friends and relatives, who at times provided a steady backdrop of sniffles.

Driver said she is a hairdresser and she spent all of Saturday — the day before De’Vonte’s death — from 1 p.m. to 3 a.m. Sunday, doing hair in her home. She testified that the weekend was a big one, as Chaney and East high schools both had homecoming, and Sweetest Day fell on the same weekend.

She had late clients because some women were getting their hair done to go to a “bar party.” Her last client was a friend who was celebrating her birthday that Sunday.

When she was done about 3 a.m. Sunday, she began cleaning up, and as she did, she noticed the gun her brother bought on the mantle above the fireplace. She said she decided to push the gun further back on the mantle behind a 75-inch television. Demonstrating for the jury, she stood on the points of her toes and reached out an arm, saying she stuffed it so far back she could barely reach it when she was finished.

“When I couldn’t see it anymore, I thought it was OK,” she testified.

She also said she called her brother and told him to get the gun as soon as possible.

She then took a shower and fell into bed exhausted, still wrapped in a towel. She was that way when she was awakened by the gunshot that took De’Vonte’s life.

Prosecutors said in opening statements Wednesday that De’Vonte and his brother were watching television when they couldn’t change the channel, so they looked for batteries for the remote control, which were also on the mantle.

When the boys found the batteries, they also found the gun, prosecutors said, and began playing with it until it went off and De’Vonte was killed. Driver testified she put the batteries up because her youngest child liked to chew on them, so she tried to keep them out of the child’s reach.

She went downstairs, found De’Vonte and called 911.

“I just asked them how to resuscitate my son,” she said through tears.

Jurors also saw body camera video from Youngstown police Patrolman Anthony Congemi, who was called to the scene and testified Wednesday.

As members of the gallery began choking back sobs and silently crying, jurors watched through Congemi’s camera as he ran into the house, then ran back to his cruiser, grabbed a pair of gloves and went back inside.

Officer Kenneth Garling was trying to put a chest seal on the wound, and Driver, still wrapped in a towel, was in tears and screaming.

“Keep pressure on both sides,” someone can be heard saying.

“Is he breathing?” Congemi asks.

“I don’t know,” Driver answers through tears.

Congemi asks her where the gun is, and she tells him it is back on the mantle. De’Vonte is sprawled on the floor on his back, blood visible on his chest, wearing a pair of dark shorts with a white stripe down the side.

Some jurors seemed visibly shaken after the video was played. A pair of women in the jury box sat stone-faced for several minutes while an older man in the first row took off his glasses, held them and stared straight ahead.

Driver then began crying on the witness stand.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It just hurts.”

Cassese coaxed her back to her testimony, getting her to tell of her visit the day after De’Vonte’s death to talk to detectives without a lawyer present, a visit she made on her own, she said.

Under cross-examination from Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Paris, Driver said she did not recall telling detectives she knew the gun was loaded. She then watched video in the judge’s chambers of her interview with police, then said when testimony resumed, she did tell them she knew the gun was loaded.

When asked by Paris if she thought anyone could get the gun, Driver said no.

But, Paris said, they did.

“I don’t know how they did,” she said.

“But you agree they could have got it?” Paris asked.

“No.”

“But they did.”

“Yes,” Driver said. “But I don’t know how.”

She denied having the gun in her purse or that the gun had been in the house for a week.

“Do you acknowledge you left a loaded handgun in your house, unattended, with several small children in your house?” Paris asked.

“I tried my best to hide it,” she answered.

Paris asked her why she didn’t unload the gun, and Driver said she did not know how. Paris asked her why she didn’t call her brother. Paris also asked her why she didn’t put the gun outside or lock it in a car or in another room in the house.

“There’s nowhere to lock the gun in my house,” she said. “I just tried to do the right thing.”

After Driver’s testimony, jurors were given a break while the attorneys went over exhibits and the judge’s instructions to the jury.