Pittsburgh teen pleads guilty to 3rd-degree murder in killing of Central Catholic student

Timothy Whitfield had nothing to say.

The Pittsburgh teen accepted a plea deal Wednesday morning for murdering Central Catholic High School student Jafar Brooks, then 15, almost three years ago outside a Penn Hills apartment complex.

Whitfield, now 19, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, robbery and conspiracy with a series of simple responses, all of them either “Yes, ma’am” or “No, ma’am.”

Before sentencing, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Beth A. Lazzara asked Whitfield, “Do you have anything to say?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied.

A relative of Brooks started weeping in the second row of Lazzara’s courtroom.

“What I really thought you were going to say is, ‘I’m sorry,’” Lazzara said. “You have changed your life and your family’s life dramatically. I hope, while you sit during your sentence … you can appreciate the gravity of what you’ve done and the heartbreak you’ve caused.”

Lazzara sentenced Whitfield to 7½ to 15 years in prison, the sentence recommended in the plea deal.

The maximum penalty could have been 40 years, Lazzara said.

Whitfield has been held at Allegheny County Jail since Oct. 29, 2021, and will receive credit for time served, court officials said. That will trim his minimum sentence to more than 5 years.

“This, to me, is just the saddest thing to see,” Lazzara said, “a young man whose life has been taken, another man who’s ruined his life.”

Family members declined to comment after the sentencing. No one in Brooks’ family made a victim impact statement in court.

Police responded to the 1900 block of Garden Drive, site of Leechburg Garden Apartments, at about 12:45 a.m. on Dec. 15, 2020. An SUV was stopped in the middle of road with its passenger side door open.

Brooks, of Churchill, was lying face down next to the vehicle, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case. He was wearing nothing but his underwear, and had suffered a gunshot wound to the neck. Brooks was pronounced dead at 12:56 a.m.

Investigators found three spent shell casings near the SUV, which was registered to the Community Empowerment Association. The group’s CEO, Homewood community activist Rashad Byrdsong, identified Brooks, a grandson he helped raise.

Video surveillance that night showed the SUV pulling onto Garden Drive and coming to a stop, the complaint said. Outside the vehicle, three males appeared to surround Brooks and were “tussling with him” before they fired several shots, the complaint said.

Two weeks after the shooting, Pittsburgh police detectives searched Whitfield’s East Hills home and found two spent .40-caliber shell casings, a Glock magazine and an empty box of ammunition, the complaint said.

A test showed that one of the spent casings found at Whitfield’s home matched one found near the SUV at the scene of the homicide, the complaint said.

Allegheny County Police charged Whitfield in 2021 with criminal homicide, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and a possession of a firearm by a minor, court records show. The firearms charge was withdrawn Wednesday.

“There are no words, you can’t describe this feeling. When you love someone, ain’t no words to make them feel better,” Byrdsong said two days after the 2020 shooting. “We can’t keep blaming the parents. We did everything by the book. We invested in him and he was still the victim.”

Brooks attended Imani Christian Academy before transferring in 2020 to Central Catholic High School, where he joined the school’s freshman football team.

The team’s head coach called him “a fearless kid.”

Byrdsong told the Tribune-Review in 2020 that it will take a large effort to offer young teens a meaningful life without violence.

“We need more counselors, therapists, teachers, political officials to sit down, talk about strategies about how to save our children,” he said.