SEEKING ANSWERS IN BOY’S DEATH

Fund started in hopes of catching teen’s killer

Oleen Clinton listens during a news conference by the Maritime Academy of Toledo Foundation on Monday, where it was announced that a reward would be offered for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the murder of her son and Maritime Academy student Tyler McIntoush, 16.

THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON
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Oleen Clinton listens during a news conference by the Maritime Academy of Toledo Foundation on Monday, where it was announced that a reward would be offered for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the murder of her son and Maritime Academy student Tyler McIntoush, 16.

McIntoush

Oleen Clinton is angry.

Someone somewhere knows who shot and killed her 16-year-old son. She goes to work every day and wonders whether any of the people she faces were there. Do they know what happened? Did they kill her boy?

“It’s so unbearable,” she said Monday morning during a news conference announcing a reward fund for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for the fatal July 24 shooting of Tyler McIntoush. “I just wish that I knew who did it and why they did it because anyone who knew my son knew that he was not about violence.”

The reward fund, which is separate from the Toledo police Crime Stopper program, had a balance of $2,500 on Monday, said Renee Marazon, president of the Maritime Academy of Toledo Foundation. The foundation established the fund and is asking for additional community donations to make providing information about the teen‘s death more appealing to anyone who has yet to speak up. The McIntoush youth would have been a junior this year.

The McIntoush youth was shot dead at about 3 a.m. July 24 on Collingwood Boulevard near Nottingham Terrace just inside the Old West End neighborhood. After the boy was killed, blocks from his mother’s home, some questioned why he was out at 3 a.m. Mrs. Clinton said on Monday that her son was walking home a female friend.

“I taught my son to be a man of your word and if you said you was going to do something, do it,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“But I also taught him to make good choices and better decisions. And unfortunately he thought he was making a good choice by walking her home, but I wish he would have made a better decision by calling her a cab instead.”

Mrs. Clinton, a single mother who works two jobs, was at work when she learned of her son’s death.

The McIntoush youth was remembered by Mrs. Marazon as “one of our brightest cadets.”

Anyone who wishes to donate to the reward fund can do so by mailing or dropping off a check to 803 Water St., the address of the Maritime Academy. The check should be written out to The Maritime Academy of Toledo Foundation with “Tyler’s reward fund” written on the memo line.

“Dishonesty always has a way of catching up with you,” Mrs. Clinton said to whomever might have killed her son. “So please stop hiding in the shadows and be a man and turn yourself in. You was man enough or thug enough or in a gang or whatever to take my son’s life [but] you’re hiding. I don’t understand that.”

Police ask that anyone with information about the case call the Crime Stopper program at 419-255-1111. Callers may remain anonymous.

Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.