Neighbors identify shooter in 2019 Wilkinsburg homicide

Nancy Cureton was sitting on a couch in the living room of her Wilkinsburg apartment the night of Nov. 16, 2019, when she heard loud arguing outside.

She went to a window, looked across Ross Avenue and saw two men in a heated disagreement, with a third man looking on as he smoked a cigarette.

Then, Cureton testified Thursday, she heard two gunshots and saw flashes from a gun.

Cureton said the shooter “turned around and just casually walked away,” leaving a man later identified as Gregory Lamont Blair Sr., 46, on the ground with a gunshot wound to his head.

Cureton said she ran to her bedroom window to continue watching and saw the shooter walk down the street.

“It was Dilon,” she testified.

Dilon Bartifay, 34, of Wilkinsburg, is charged with a single count of criminal homicide. His jury trial, before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Beth A. Lazzara, began Wednesday. Blair is the father of former University of Pittsburgh basketball star DeJuan Blair.

Assistant District Attorney Alison Bragle told the jury in her opening statement that Blair approached Bartifay on the street that night because he thought Bartifay had been harassing his friend as she waited outside for a Lyft. After calling several witnesses Thursday, the prosecution rested its case.

The defense will begin its case Friday.

During her testimony Thursday morning, Cureton said she was able to identify Bartifay because he lived in her building and had done odd jobs for her best friend, with whom she lived.

When Cureton called 911 to report the shooting, she didn’t name Bartifay. Instead, she provided the call-taker with a description of the suspect’s clothing and said he was light-skinned with a little beard and had a mustache.

“‘Someone just got shot,’” she said in the recording.

Cureton said in the call that she had been on the couch and heard two gunshots, which made her rush to the window to look out.

Defense attorney Nina Martinelli seized upon the inconsistency between Cureton’s testimony Thursday — that she looked outside when she heard the arguing and saw the gun fire — with her 911 call, where she said she didn’t look outside until after she heard the shots.

On cross-examination, Martinelli asked Cureton repeatedly asked her what she had seen.

“I was already in the window when the shots went off. I was in the window, and I saw them arguing. I seen the shots,” Cureton said. “I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Cureton’s best friend, Janet Gibson, testified that she had just returned home from dinner with her brother that night when she heard arguing on the street.

“It sounded aggressive,” she said. “It sounded like it was trouble.”

Gibson told the jury that she had gotten out of her brother’s car and stopped at her own car, when she saw Bartifay in the street.

She entered their apartment building, and as she made her way up the steps, Gibson heard shots. She said she froze.

By the time Gibson got to her apartment, she said Cureton was “freaking out.”

Gibson said she told her that she had seen Bartifay on the street, and Cureton replied, “‘Yeah, I saw him shoot him.’”

An analyst with the Allegheny County crime lab testified that she found gunshot residue on Bartifay’s right hand and on the right sleeve and cuff of his sweatshirt.

During her opening statement, Martinelli told the jury that Bartifay was there that night, but that Blair was shot by the other man, who was outside smoking.

That man, Antonio Williams, was the prosecution’s last witness.

Williams, who is currently incarcerated at Allegheny County Jail after pleading guilty to receiving stolen property, testified he was outside that night when Blair approached, angry because he said Cureton had harassed his friend.

Williams told the jury that he told Blair he hadn’t talked to the woman at all. Then, Williams said, he turned to go back inside the apartment building when he heard gunshots. Williams testified that he did not see Bartifay shoot Blair, which is what he told police when he was questioned two days after the shooting.

“That’s because you shot him, right?” Martinelli asked.

“No,” Williams responded.

“He was in your face, right?” the defense attorney asked.

“Yeah.”

Williams testified that when he told Blair he wasn’t the one harassing Blair’s friend, Blair left him alone.

When asked why he didn’t call police that night, Williams told the jury that he didn’t want to be labeled as a snitch.