A day before his murder conviction, Patrick Gall caught with weapon in jail

ELYRIA — The day before a jury found Patrick Gall guilty of aggravated murder and he was sentenced to life in prison, deputies found a homemade weapon concealed in his cell at Lorain County Jail.About 11 p.m. Sunday, corrections officers at the jail received a request from another inmate for a housing transfer "due to aggressive behavior in the pod and the presence of a weapon in the pod," according to jail records. The inmate described the weapon as a "long, metal shank" that was made from a "flat duster" used during pod cleaning.When an officer went to the mop room in the area of the jail where the complaint originated, the officer found that one of the dusters had been tampered with and a metal bracket bar was missing.A group of officers and a dog went to the cell where Gall and William Hall, 22, of Cleveland, were being held. Gall and Hall were handcuffed, searched and removed from the cell, according to jail records. Officers then searched the cell.Two minutes later, an officer found "a sharpened piece of metal with a homemade cloth handle" underneath the sink inside the cell. A report of the incident said the weapon was 18 inches long. No other contraband was found in the cell.Gall and Hall were questioned about the weapon and denied having any knowledge of the weapon, having any problems in the pod, nor did they want to "hurt themselves or others," the report said.Both men denied having any gang affiliation, the report said.Hall — who was booked into the jail on charges of contempt, receiving stolen property, obstructing and failure to comply — did not have any "tattoos that resembled any gang affiliation." Gall had "six-point star on his neck with the number six in it, which represents 'Gangsta Disciple' affiliation," according to jail records.Both inmates were placed on full security restrictions and were added to the separation list to be kept from each other. Criminal charges in connection to the alleged incident are possible, according to jail records.On Monday, a jury found Gall guilty of aggravated murder in connection with the shooting death of Willie Fisher. Prosecutors said Gall was part of a murder-for-hire plot in which Bruce Arnoff, 59, of Solon paid Gall and John Sullivan, 30, of East Cleveland, $500 to kill Fisher.Fisher's body was found behind a shopping plaza on East Avenue in Elyria on July 6. Just hours after police say Fisher was killed, Gall and Sullivan were stopped by Brooklyn police on Interstate 480 for traveling 80 mph in a 60 mph zone.Prosecutors said Gall and Sullivan had just left a meeting with Arnoff at a strip club on Brookpark Road, where they believe Arnoff paid the two men for killing Fisher. Sullivan was arrested on an unrelated warrant out of Maple Heights during the stop and police found $340 in $20 bills in his pockets during the arrest.Gall lied to police about his name and was released. Four days later, the U.S. Marshals' Violent Fugitive Task Force arrested Gall at his East Cleveland home after a four-hour standoff. Arnoff was arrested on July 7 after police watched him allegedly remove hard drives from surveillance systems at the shopping plaza where the killing took place in an attempt to destroy video evidence of the crimes.Though prosecutors said Sullivan was the one that shot Fisher, Gall was found guilty of aggravated murder for his complicit role in the murder-for-hire plot. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for at least 28 years by Judge John Miraldi.The cases of Arnoff and Sullivan are pending in Lorain County Common Pleas Court.Contact Scott Mahoney at 329-7146 or smahoney@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @SMahoneyCT.