Jury finds man guilty of first-degree murder in 2019 North Side shooting death

A jury deliberated for less than two hours Monday before finding a Turtle Creek man guilty of first-degree murder.

Maurice Demond King, 29, will be sentenced to a mandatory penalty of life in prison without parole on Nov. 29.

King was accused of killing Cedrick L. Mack, 41, of Duquesne, in an afternoon shooting on the North Side on Dec. 18, 2019.

Mack had been planning to meet King that afternoon, and as he exited his friend’s car at Kennedy and Norwood avenues, gunshots went off.

Mack pulled his friend, Ashley Strong, who was driving, toward the floor of the car. As she hid there, she testified last week, she saw a man walk up behind Mack and shoot him in the back of the head.

Strong was struck in the wrist and shoulder.

King also was found guilty of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, carrying a firearm with a license and tampering with evidence.

His trial, before Common Pleas Judge Bruce Beemer, began on Wednesday.

Investigators were able to link King to the case through the use of video surveillance, license plate camera readers and witness statements.

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Berosh told the jurors that after the shooting, police tracked the suspect through the snow back to the Steelworkers Towers Apartments on Perrysville Avenue.

Video there showed King, who had signed in that morning to the building where his grandmother lived, disposing of clothing in a trash chute.

Defense attorney Frank Walker said after the verdict that there could be issues on appeal.

“The evidence was tough here,” he said. “It’s the defendant’s choice to proceed to trial.”