By Tribune-Review

Published: Thursday, January 24, 2013, 1:21 a.m.
Updated: Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Harrison

Drug hearings: Two people charged in connection with a Jan. 18 heroin bust in the Sheldon Park housing complex did not have scheduled hearings Wednesday.

Appearing before District Judge Carolyn Bengel, Tanika Woody, 35, who was renting the apartment at 371 Park St., waived her right to a hearing. The charges against her, including possession with intent to sell heroin, possession of marijuana and conspiracy, were bound over for trial in Allegheny County Court.

Bengel set Woody's bond at $10,000.

Dray Blackman, 35, of 415 North Ave., Pittsburgh, had his hearing continued to next Wednesday because he did not have an attorney. He remains in the Allegheny County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond.

Blackman is charged with possession with intent to sell, possession and having the pistol and two loaded clips, even though he is a convicted felon and banned from having firearms.

Harrison and Tarentum, police and state narcotics agents found 600 doses of heroin, nearly $1,800 in cash and a semi-automatic pistol during the raid at Woody's apartment, which she and Blackman occupied at the time.

Harrison police Chief Mike Klein described Blackman as a mid-level heroin dealer who would sell only 50 packets of heroin, known as a brick, at a time.

Klein estimated the street value of the heroin is between $6,000 and $9,000.

Police also allegedly found a 9-mm pistol that Blackman had placed into a slit in the mattress where he was sleeping.

Burglary hearing: A Carlisle man who was apprehended through the use of DNA evidence, was held for trial Wednesday in connection with a 2009 drug store burglary.

District Judge Carolyn Bengel ordered Mark Morkin, 31, held following a hearing on charges of burglary, theft, criminal trespass and criminal mischief.

The charges were filed by Harrison and Allegheny County police in connection to a Dec. 15, 2009 burglary at the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy, 2606 Freeport Road.

Police responded to an alarm at the pharmacy shortly before midnight and found that its drive-thru window had been broken out.

As they searched for suspects, police found several prescription bottles, apparently with blood on them, in adjacent yards and nearby Mt. Airy Cemetery.

County police sent the bottles to the county crime lab which, on Aug. 4, 2010, notified investigators that it developed a DNA profile from the blood on the bottles.

That profile was submitted to the Combined DNA Indexing System at the crime lab, which reported back in Oct. 25, 2011 that it found a match for the profile with a convicted offender in the state police databank.

The offender was identified as Morkin, whom police subsequently located in eastern Pennsylvania.

Morkin reportedly worked on the Medicine Shoppe‘s computer system before the burglary.

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