Police investigating two Columbus homicides from Friday night
Linda McGuffin and her son, Max, kept in touch regularly. But to a mother, regularly isn’t nearly enough.
“Not often enough for me,” Linda McGuffin said.
On Saturday morning, the Columbus mother was holding tight to one of the last things she heard from her son.
“One of his last texts to me said he loved me,” Linda McGuffin told The Dispatch from her East Side home.
Columbus police are investigating two Friday night homicides, the first of which took the life of Linda’s son, Max A. McGuffin, 35, of Reynoldsburg.
Here’s The Dispatch’s updated map of where homicides have occurred in Columbus
Police were called just after 7:50 p.m. to the 900 block of Barnett Road on the East Side on a report of a shooting. Officers arrived on the scene, an auto repair business, where they found Max McGuffin suffering from a gunshot wound, according to Columbus police.
He was transported to Mt. Carmel East Hospital, but ultimately succumbed to his injuries and died at 8:20 p.m. Friday. His death was the fourth homicide of 2022.
Linda McGuffin described her son as a “real good guy,” and a good father to two children, ages 6 and 9. He worked often at the auto repair business where he was shot, she said.
“It was just devastating,” Linda McGuffin said of learning her older son had been slain. “We’re all so sick of all this gun violence going on.”
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It’s not the first tragedy for Linda McGuffin, who lost her younger son, Evan, in 2015. Evan McGuffin was 23 when he died “after many struggles” with addiction and medical issues.
“We’ve all had our issues in the past, Max and Evan, and everybody,” said Linda McGuffin.
Max McGuffin was a strong-headed man, and could be stubborn, she said.
“When this happened last night, it was just, on top of everything, so devastating.”
Homicide detectives are also investigating a separate suspected homicide Friday night in Franklinton, where firefighters responding to a vehicle on fire discovered a body inside.
Columbus firefighters were called around 8:40 p.m. Friday to a vehicle fire in the 100 block of Yale Avenue between West Broad Street and McKinley Avenue.
After extinguishing the pickup truck that was on fire, Columbus Fire Battalion Chief Steve Martin said firefighters discovered a body in the back seat. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene at 8:56 p.m.
Homicide detectives were called to the scene and are now investigating the death as a suspected homicide. The deceased person’s name will be released once police confirm the identity and can notify family, police said.
The pickup truck death would be the fifth homicide in 2022, all five occurring within just four days.
Anyone with information regarding these or any Columbus homicides is asked to call the city police Homicide Unit at (614) 645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at (614) 461-TIPS (8477).
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