Grand jury indicts 2 gang members

Columbus men were involved in a combined 4 slayings.

COLUMBUS — Two men associated with local sects of the Bloods street gang were indicted Thursday in a combined four homicides that occurred this month in Columbus.

Darnell D. Vinson, 20, and Devon D. Bias, 22, are charged with killing two people on Dec. 4 in the 200 block of South Wayne Avenue.

Vinson is charged with two additional slayings in separate shootings, both on the South Side: Dec. 10 at the Exhale Hookah Lounge, 2044 Lockbourne Road, and Dec. 11 in a home in the 200 block of Barthman Avenue.

Vinson, of the 900 block of South Champion Avenue on the South Side, was arrested after jumping from a second-floor window at the Barthman address and suffering a broken leg. He “made numerous statements to police officers, as well as a subsequent interview, that he shot the victim,” a homicide detective wrote in an affidavit filed in Franklin County Municipal Court.

A witness to the hookah-lounge shooting, in which two other people were wounded, identified Vinson from a photo array, according to court records.

Bias, whose address is listed as the streets of Columbus, was arrested Dec. 21. A witness identified him as one of the shooters in the double homicide on South Wayne, according to court records.

In that shooting, Bias and Vinson are accused of firing rounds into an SUV, killing 16-year-old Quentin William Smith and injuring three other people. A stray bullet entered a nearby house and killed Severen T. Clayborn, 33.

Kieara Ka’Torence Charnele Hobbs, 26, died in the hookah-lounge shooting. Brandon Meeks, 29, died in the Barthman Avenue shooting.