Cellphone used to identify murder suspect

Ten minutes before he was fatally shot, Todd Lancaster received a cellphone call at his Northeast Side home on April 13 that someone was coming to see him.

That call was placed from the cellphone of Hasani L. Goosby Jr., 22, who is accused of fatally shooting Lancaster, 45, on the front lawn of his home on Larkhall Lane, a police search warrant affidavit in Franklin County Municipal Court states.

Columbus police had been seeking Goosby, whose last known address was in South Linden, for months. He was finally arrested on Oct. 20.

A Franklin County grand jury on Oct. 26 indicted Goosby on multiple counts connected with Lancaster’s death, including aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary.

A few minutes before 11 p.m. on April 13, Lancaster received the phone call, and witnesses at his home said they heard the person on the other line state they were coming to see him in 10 minutes, the search warrant indicates.

When Lancaster answered a knock on the front door about 10 minutes later, he and Goosby fought in the front yard, court records say. During that fight, Goosby shot Lancaster, court records show. Lancaster was rushed to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 11:59 p.m.

Columbus police knew what Goosby’s phone number was because he had been arrested in February on a drug charge. On April 14, police located Goosby’s cellphone on McGuffey Road in North Linden, where a citizen found it.

The search warrant obtained swabs from Goosby to compare his DNA from the shooting scene and his cellphone.

Goosby is being held in the Franklin County Jail.