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Residents express shock over violent incident on Neal Street

Police gather in front of 1015 E. 12th St. in Parkersburg following a fatal shooting Wednesday morning. (Photo by Michael Erb)

PARKERSBURG — People around the neighborhood where two people killed themselves Wednesday afternoon were worried about the state of their city as violent crime seems to becoming a daily occurrence.

Parkersburg Police responded Wednesday afternoon to the corner of Neal Street and Ninth Avenue, at a parking lot behind O’Reilly’s Auto Parts, where two people, one male and one female, were in a white pick-up truck. As the stand-off with police continued, the man who had pulled out a semi automatic pistol shot himself and then the woman picked up the gun and shot herself, police officials said.

Jason Edward Drain, 31, and Cassandra Michelle Bailey, 28, both of Parkersburg, were identified by police as the occupants inside the truck.

Parkersburg Police identified the victim of an earlier shooting Wednesday at East 12th Street as Brian Duanne Shann, 38, of Parkersburg.

Drain was a suspect in the shooting death of Shann at 1015 E. 12th St. at the corner of 12th and Oak streets earlier in the day.

Police believe the motive for that killing was robbery.

Angie Johnson, who lives in the apartment building at 907 Neal St., said she saw the incident unfold.

”I opened my back door to a stand-off with 8-12 guys with AK-47s yelling ‘Jason, get out of the car. Put it down. Put it down,'” she said. ”About four minutes later you heard a gunshot. A minute later, you heard another gunshot.”

At some point, she heard police say ”Cassandra, get out of the car. Put it down.”

Some people in the neighborhood believed he shot her and then shot himself.

Parkersburg Police Chief Joe Martin had said no officer firearms were discharged in the incident.

Johnson said the female body was facing toward the driver’s seat when officials pulled her out.

Johnson was shaken by the incident.

”I can’t describe in words what I am feeling,” she said. ”The first thing I did was call my mother and tell her I have to move my children. I cannot have my children around this.”

They have had to fear for the children’s safety in the neighborhood with the drug problem, talk of a potential sexual predator in the area and more, Johnson said.

”I have two little girls and they can’t even walk out to the sidewalk in a neighborhood that I grew up in,” Johnson said. ”It is absurd.”

This incident was a reminder to people of the way things are in the area, she said.

”I grew up on these streets and never in a million years would I thought that I would see, in a parking lot that we used to ride our bikes in, two people shooting themselves,” Johnson said. ”I felt like I was in the middle of a ‘Law and Order’ episode and this is Neal Street.”

She hoped the police would be done with most of their work before her kids got home from school.

”I don’t want to explain this,” Johnson said. ”Our kids aren’t ready for that.”

Ninth Avenue resident Velma Sholes said she’s never seen anything as bad as Wednesday’s incident in the years she’s lived there.

“It shook me up,” she said.

Some people in the neighborhood said they believed the incident was connected to the area’s growing drug problem.

Loretta Emerick, who lived in a house next to the parking lot along Neal Street, was not home when the incident occurred and came home after a friend told her about it.

”This is crazy,” she said. ”This town is getting bad. It is all drugs. I think our town is full of drugs.”

Emerick said she never believed these kinds of incidents, things associated with urban inner city areas, would occur on Neal Street.

Emerick bought her house over a year ago.

”I grew up on southside and I never would have imagined this going on here,” she said.

The area has had its share of problems as people have regularly tried to break into her house and other incidents have occurred, she said.

”We have had a cop here every week,” Emerick said. ”It is the drugs.”

She has taken steps to better protect herself, but still doesn’t believe it is enough.

”I still feel unsafe,” Emerick said.

A Parkersburg woman who asked that her name not be used said she learned of the first shooting after hearing that Jefferson Elementary Center, her granddaughter’s school, was on lockdown. She drove by the scene at Ninth Avenue and Neal Street because she was in the area when her sons heard about what was happening via social media.

Crime in the city, especially related to drugs, has her concerned.

“This is getting out of control,” she said. “I’m ready to move out of here.”

Matthew Oldaker, whose mother owns the Neal St. Resale Store, have lived in the neighborhood all his life.

”I have lived here since I was a kid and nothing like this has ever happened in this neighborhood,” he said. ”This neighborhood needs to be cleaned up.”

Oldaker said his family is worried about his mother’s safety and for the store.

”She grew up here and never had seen anything like this,” he said.

Oldaker too believes this incident is related to the area’s growing drug problem.

”It is the drugs,” he said. ”It is the Ice and the Heroin. All of these people are going crazy. That is what this stuff does to them.”

He feels the area has problems which need to be addressed from these shootings to violent beatings and other violence that has occurred lately, he said.

Oldaker said it is “just the tip of the iceberg” and people need to be aware of the problems out there.

Melissa Fletcher, who lived on Neal Street next to the apartment building, contacted her daughter and told her to stay at school.

”I called my daughter and said she wasn’t coming home to this,” she said. ”I will pick her up when all of this settles down. I am not having my daughter exposed to this.”

Fletcher wasn’t sure what the future will bring for the neighborhood.

”I don’t know how much longer I want to live here,” she said. ”It is getting worse. The drugs are getting ridiculous.”

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