DA to seek death penalty against man charged in Pittsburgh triple homicide

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office plans to seek the death penalty against a man charged in the New Year’s Eve killings of three people, including a 12-year-old boy.

Ronald Steave, 30, was charged Jan. 6 with three counts of homicide in connection with the shooting deaths of his ex, Nandi Fitzgerald, 28; her son, Denzel “Buddy” Nowlin Jr.; and 28-year-old Tatiana “Tay” Hill. He was arrested March 24. They were shot and killed in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood.

District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. pointed to seven aggravating factors in his announcement that he would pursue the death penalty, one of which indicates that one of the victims was set to testify against Steave in a separate case.

According to Zappala’s notice to the court: “The victim was a prosecution witness to a murder or other felony committed by the defendant and was killed for the purpose of preventing his testimony against the defendant in any grand jury or criminal proceedings involving such offenses.”

Cellphone records showed a series of confrontational text messages between Steave and Fitzgerald, and photos from her phone showed Steave at the row house the night of the shooting, police said.

Gunfire about 4 a.m. the morning of the killings prompted neighbors on Hamilton Avenue in Homewood to call police, who arrived at the row house and found Fitzgerald just inside the front door, according to the criminal complaint. Officers found the boy had attempted to hide behind a door, while Hill was hiding under a bed, according to the complaint.

City surveillance cameras helped police track a car that was at the scene that night back to Steave, according to the complaint. Investigators found the car later that morning. In it were shell casings that matched those found at the shooting scene, police said.

Zappala notified the court Thursday that he intends to pursue the death penalty in the case.

To obtain a sentence of death, prosecutors must show that there is at least one aggravating factor in the case, and that it outweighs any mitigating factors presented by the defense.

In Steave’s case, the DA’s office listed seven factors. In addition to one victim being a prosecution witness, they include:

• He committed the killing while committing a felony.
• He knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person in addition to the homicide victim.
• He has a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence.
• He has been convicted of another offense — committed either before or at the time of the offense at issue — for which life imprisonment or death was possible.
• He has been convicted of another murder in any jurisdiction, either before or at the time of the offense at issue.
• He has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter or a similar crime either before or after the time of the offense at issue.

Pennsylvania law allows prosecutors to consider the killing of multiple people at the same time — in this case, Nowlin Jr., Fitzgerald and Hill — as being applicable in aggravating factors.

No one has been executed in Pennsylvania since 1999, and only three people have been executed since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978.

It is the third case over the past two months in which Zappala made capital punishment an option.

In early April, Zappala’s office announced it would pursue the death penalty against Isaac Smith. Smith, 26, is accused of killing 26-year-old Karli Short and her unborn child. Later that month, Zappala gave notice that he would seek the death penalty for Calvin Crew, who is accused of robbing and killing Christi Spicuzza, an Uber driver and mother of four.