Swissvale homicide victim 'wanted to give Lyla the best,' friend says

Tyleda Worou pulled the car over on the Parkway East when she got the call about her friends. Megan Campbell and her 7-year-old daughter, Lyla, had been shot dead in Swissvale.

“‘Megan and Lyla are dead,’” Campbell’s brother told Worou, an entrepreneur who lives in Penn Hills. “I couldn’t believe it.”

She had been close with Campbell since the two met, around age 6, at Lincoln Avenue Church of God in East Liberty.

“We were friends for life,” Worou said. “When we needed to reconnect, we never missed a beat.”

Campbell’s cousin, Kareef Easington, 35, of Swissvale, has been charged with two counts of criminal homicide and tampering with evidence in connection with both killings. Easington, who was arrested Saturday night, is in the Allegheny County Jail, and has a March 3 preliminary hearing.

Police said Easington lived with the two victims, who were found Feb. 15 dead from multiple gunshot wounds in their apartment in the 7800 block of Sailor Place, a narrow side-street near Edgewood Towne Center. Neighbors there stayed behind closed doors when approached Monday.

Worou, who talked hesitantly about the killings, said Easington has “an irrational mind.” She said she tried to convince Campbell to get him to instead live with family members in New Jersey.

“She opted to keep him around, because she felt he wasn’t that bad — and that everything was okay,” Worou told the Tribune-Review. “And it wasn’t.”

Worou declined to elaborate.

Worou said she and Campbell “were pretty inseparable” after Campbell became pregnant with her daughter. Worou’s son, who she preferred not to name in the newspaper, is the same age as Lyla Campbell.

“Since the womb, that child (Lyla) has been a part of my life,” Worou said.

“She and my youngest son were extremely, extremely close,” she added. “They’ve been together since bottles and diapers, and on and on.”

Campbell, 39, was a certified nurse assistant, working at nursing homes in the area and picking up side jobs for parents who had children with disabilities, Worou said.

A 2001 graduate of Westinghouse High School in Homewood, Campbell had lived in Swissvale for about four years, Worou said. Her daughter attended a private school, which Worou declined to name.

“She chose to be a nurse because she wanted to provide a stable life for Lyla,” Worou said. “She wanted to give Lyla the best.”

Worou remembered the little details about Campbell this week, like how Campbell liked to pick every flower she saw when the two of them walked on Frick Park’s Biddle Trail, a gravel pathway near Fern Hollow Creek.

“(Campbell’s death) affected a lot of people,” Worou said. “This affected a lot more people than you could imagine.”

Anyone with information about the homicide should call the Allegheny County Police tip line at 1-833-255-8477.