The Mahoning County Coroner's Office has identified a man found decomposed behind a vacant home on Youngstown's South Side as 39-year-old Brad Gordon, using fingerprint records to confirm his identity six days after his remains were discovered. Investigators still have not said how Gordon died or how long his body had been lying in the wooded backyard near West Ravenwood Avenue and Hillman Street before someone finally called for help.
Police responded to the property at approximately 5:10 p.m. on August 6 after a 911 call reporting a heavily decomposed body in the backyard of the abandoned home, according to The Vindicator. A separate report from WGXA, citing a police report reviewed by WFMJ, described officers responding around 7 p.m. to find the unidentified man in a state of extreme decomposition. The two accounts differ on the exact response time, but both agree the remains were badly decomposed when officers arrived.
A Woodworker's Grim Discovery
The body was first found by a person who does occasional woodwork and had gone into the heavily wooded lot behind the West Ravenwood Avenue house to gather lumber supplies, the Vindicator's reporting shows. That same account states the woodworker notified neighbors of what he'd found before anyone contacted 911.
The timeline of who knew what, and when, remains murky. The Vindicator reported that the eventual 911 caller told dispatchers a Hillman Street resident had told her about the body two days earlier, but she waited until she could personally go to the backyard and confirm the sighting herself before phoning police. WGXA's report, however, described the caller as saying she'd learned of the body only about an hour before she dialed 911 and then saw it herself. Both versions agree the same woman ultimately made the call after viewing the remains in person.
Ohio Law Requires Prompt Reporting
Any delay in reporting a death carries potential legal weight in Ohio. Section 2921.22 of the Ohio Revised Code requires anyone who discovers a body or learns of an unexpected death to report it promptly to police or a coroner, and failing to do so can carry statutory penalties. It's unclear whether that provision factors into the ongoing investigation.
Investigators have not determined whether foul play is suspected in Gordon's death, nor have they said how long his body had been in the backyard before it was found, according to the police report cited by WGXA. Those questions are expected to hinge partly on the results of the autopsy.
Why the Autopsy Went to Cleveland
Because Mahoning County has long faced forensic pathologist shortages, the coroner's office routinely sends complex autopsies to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office in Cleveland, paying $1,475 per autopsy plus $175 in transport fees per body, the Vindicator has previously reported. That regional arrangement likely explains why fingerprint identification, rather than a local autopsy finding, was the first concrete update in Gordon's case.
If fingerprints hadn't been usable, investigators could have turned to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Project LINK, a free program launched in 1999 that compares DNA from families of missing people against unidentified remains statewide, according to the Ohio Attorney General's office. BCI also produces forensic facial reconstructions for coroners working unidentified cases. State records show more than 100 unidentified human remains cases across Ohio, with over half concentrated in the northeastern part of the state, per a report cited on Facebook by WCBD News 2.
A Vacant, Watched Stretch of the South Side
The block where Gordon's body was found sits in a section of Youngstown's South Side where roughly a third of the surrounding structures and lots are vacant or abandoned, according to planning documents from the City of Youngstown. City officials have noted that such blight attracts criminal activity and creates safety hazards, even as the city has demolished more than 7,000 blighted homes in recent years in an effort to improve public safety. The corner of West Ravenwood Avenue and Hillman Street has drawn police attention before; a shooting near that intersection in March 2017 left two people injured, according to Vindicator archives.
Gordon's case joins a string of recent Mahoning County matters that have drawn law enforcement scrutiny, following Hoodline's earlier coverage of a Youngstown cemetery slaying arrest. For now, the central questions in Gordon's death — how he died, and how long he lay undiscovered behind that vacant South Side house — remain open, pending further word from investigators.
