A man from Pittsburgh’s Hill District will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing another man on Memorial Day 2019.
A jury found Jalaspian Charles, 34, guilty of first-degree murder, reckless endangerment and a firearms charge on Oct. 12. On Thursday, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski sentenced Charles to the mandatory term of life in prison without parole, plus an additional two to four years.
Charles was convicted of killing Isaac Tylee Harrison, 34, on May 27, 2019, on Chauncey Drive in Bedford Dwellings.
Police received a ShotSpotter alert just before 11 p.m. They said they found Harrison shot at least five times. He died a short time later at UPMC Mercy.
Charles was identified by officers through security video footage. He was arrested five months later by U.S. Marshals in Denver, Colo.
At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Harrison’s family provided victim impact statements.
Harrison’s cousin, Leea Russell, wrote that just before he was shot, the two of them had an argument.
“I never got a chance to talk to Tylee. We never got a chance to apologize to each other,” Russell wrote. “We didn’t get a chance to say we love each other one last time, and for that I hate Jalaspian. He gook away my peace. He took away me ever knowing if Tylee is still mad at me.”
Harrison’s son, JiKier Hawkins, wrote in his victim impact statement that his dad was a loving person who introduced him to dirt bikes.
Hawkins told the court that when Harrison first got him a dirt bike, Hawkins’ mom was upset.
“My dad’s words to her was, ‘He’s a boy, he’s OK, he got it,” he wrote. “I have so many memories of my dad. I miss him so much.”
Tamara Brumfield, who had a son with Harrison, said in her victim impact statement that she was the one who had to go to the hospital the night of the shooting to identify Harrison, and that the image of him will be with her forever.
“Tylee was everything that I could ask for in a man,” she wrote.
Brumfield called Charles a “wanna-be gangster” who only felt power with a gun in his hand. She said that she hated him for taking away the love of her life.
“He was perfect in my eyes, and the fact that you decided his (fate) and not God bothers me the most,” she wrote. “I hate that I must raise my only son alone.”
