Springfield police responded around 9 p.m. July 8 to a shooting in the 200 block of Rosewood Avenue. The gunshot victim, Gregory Allen Wells Jr., was shot multiple times in the chest. He was taken to Mercy Health - Springfield Regional Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Springfield Police Sgt. James Byron, during a press conference Thursday, declined to share many specifics of the incident, citing an open investigation. He said investigators know the details of “most of the events in this case.”
According to court records, witnesses told police that Wells was sitting in his Jeep Grand Cherokee with the window open when a man they later identified as Holt approached the driver’s side and began shooting. Witnesses said Holt was the only person around the car when they heard shots.
Execution of a search warrant in Holt’s bedroom — located on the same street as the shooting — found a handgun box missing both a gun and magazine and ammunition.
According to court records, Holt was detained at the scene and questioned. Byron declined to share why it took 18 days to arrest him or if police were aware of his location between the shooting and his arrest.
Holt’s home address is listed as the location at which Wells was sitting in his car.
Byron described Holt and Wells as friends. He said a minor was also injured during the incident, but he was unsure if the injury was due to a gunshot wound.
Holt’s father, Cedric Holt Jr., was found murdered at a Springfield park in 2018, around the same time when the son himself was a victim in a Huber Heights home invasion. Kedric Holt was tied up during the incident, which police did not connect to his father’s murder.
Byron said Wells’ murder is unrelated to Cedric Holt Jr.’s murder and the home invasion in Huber Heights.
Wells, known as “JR,” is a 2021 graduate of Springfield High School and Springfield-Clark Career Technology Center. He worked at Navistar and earlier this year started a car detailing business, J&W Detailing, with his grandfather, according to his obituary.
His death was the sixth homicide in Springfield this year, said Valerie Lough, community information coordinator for the city. That is pacing above the last two years: in 2022, there were eight homicides and nine in 2021, she said.
“This gun violence needs to stop,” Wells’ grandmother Victoria Arnold said earlier this month. “People are tired of burying their young.”
She became a victim’s advocate for the Clark County Prosecutor’s Office following the 2005 shooting death of her son, Titus, who worked with the juvenile court system. He was randomly shot by two men at the end of a four-day crime spree that included two other shootings.
Arnold also lost another grandchild in the recent past; Wells’ twin sister, Destiny, died in a rollover crash about three years ago.
“I became a victim’s advocate to honor my son’s memory not realizing later on I would be honoring the memory of my granddaughter, Destiny, and now my grandson, Gregory,” Arnold said. “I took this job to give back, not to bury mine, so I’m very angry about this whole situation.”
Byron said cooperation of the public was a small but important part in the investigation.
“This (case) wasn’t solved solely with the public, but that was a big impact in it,” Byron said. “We always ask if anybody has information on any cases that we have — active or previous cases — that we would like them to call.”
Anyone with information on this case or others can call 937-324-7716.
Credit: Marshall Gorby
Credit: Marshall Gorby
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