After 4 years, Wilkinsburg mass shooting case comes down to 3-week trial

There were 49 shots, then screams, then sirens.

The sounds cut through the unseasonably warm night in March 2016, where in a backyard in Wilkinsburg family and friends gathered to take advantage of the weather.

Brittany Powell was living in the home at 1304 Franklin Ave., where a modest backyard was flanked by a privacy fence along one side and a white picket fence on another. Powell, 27, invited her siblings, Jerry Shelton and Lamont and Chanetta Powell. Chanetta was pregnant, due in a month.

Her cousin, Tina Shelton, was there, too. So was her best friend, Shada Mahone. Neighbor John Ellis came by. Her mother, Jessica Shelton, had been there earlier but was gone by the time two individuals opened fire on the gathering.

Who fired and why depends upon whom you ask.

Nearly four years later, the men prosecutors contend opened fire are set to head to trial. Cheron Shelton, 33, and Robert Thomas, 31, have remained in the Allegheny County Jail since late March 2016. They were charged three months later. Each faces six counts of homicide — one for each adult victim and one for Chanetta Powell’s unborn son, Demetrius.

Road to trial

The road to trial has been fraught with tension. Both men have two defense attorneys, each high-profile in status and personality. Randall McKinney and Wendy Williams represent Shelton; Casey White and Michael Machen represent Thomas.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge David Cashman was initially assigned the case but recused himself in 2018 because he had signed several of the search warrants executed over the course of the investigation. Before that, in 2017, he issued a gag order, barring anyone involved in the case from speaking publicly about it.

Jury selection began Jan. 6 and took three weeks. During the selection process, defense attorneys and prosecutors had heated exchanges. Williams called Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini a tattletale. Pellegrini called White unethical. In a joint motion filed last week, defense attorneys accused Pellegrini and the rest of the District Attorney’s Office of misconduct.

The DA’s Office contends Shelton and Thomas approached the backyard from opposite sides, with Thomas coming from the picket fence and Shelton from a small path between the house and privacy fence.

The plan was a tactical one, investigators allege: Thomas’ handgun fire would send the group scrambling toward a small alcove where the backdoor was. There were 12 to 15 people there, creating a bottleneck at the door. Shelton, it is alleged, then opened fire with an AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle, spraying the bunched-up partygoers with bullets.

Police found four of the five bodies piled on top of each other at the backdoor.

Investigators say cellphone records put Shelton and Thomas in the area at the time, with a flurry of calls in the hour leading to the shooting. They say there’s a four-minute call just before the shooting, and no cellphone contact at the time of the 10:53 p.m. shooting. After, there are several missed calls.

The motive, investigators allege, was vengeance. Shelton’s target was Lamont Powell, who survived the shooting. Investigators say Shelton believed Powell was involved in the 2013 murder of his best friend, Calvin Doswell. Powell has never been charged in that case.

The original criminal complaint filed in June 2016 — which contained information from two jailhouse snitches deemed unfit to testify by the judge presiding over the case — paints Shelton as wanting to kill as many members of Powell’s family as possible. Thomas, on the other hand, is portrayed as a reluctant participant in the killings that, at the time, District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. called the worst he had ever seen.

Mapping their movements

About 10:30 p.m. March 9, Shelton placed what appeared to be a “long, slender, ridged object” draped in clothing into a car and drove away from Nolan Court, part of the public housing complex in Homewood where he had grown up, according to the criminal complaint.

Twelve minutes later, a video camera recorded a car matching its description arriving at Franklin Avenue. The first gunshots were heard at 10:54 p.m.

Video footage is alleged to show Shelton and Thomas returning to Nolan Court at 12:23 a.m. The men place a black bag in the trunk of a different car, then drive off, according to the complaint.

Two hours later, Penn Hills police responding to a “suspicious persons in a yard” report found Shelton talking on his cellphone by a vacant house on Hebron Drive. There were no outstanding warrants or reasons to hold him, so they let him go. Shelton returned to Nolan Court at 2:57 a.m., authorities say.

Investigators zeroed in on Shelton and Thomas early. A search warrant served on the Nolan Court home and Shelton’s Lincoln-Lemington apartment three days after the shooting turned up ammunition and firearms, although none could be linked to the slayings. Shelton’s previous convictions mean he cannot possess firearms, and he was arrested March 25.

Police also re-upped 3-year-old drug charges against Thomas and Shelton. Investigators asked that both be held without bail.

Thomas and Shelton have remained in jail since. They face the death penalty if convicted.

Defense attorneys have contended there is no physical evidence that links Shelton and Thomas to the Wilkinsburg crime scene. Prosecutors plan to argue that cellphone data puts them in communication and in the area at the time.

Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski has said the trial could last up to three weeks, though he has elected not to sequester the jury.

Borkowski has yet to rule on a motion filed Friday by White to dismiss charges against Thomas. The motion is based on prosecutors’ concession that they will not call an unnamed jailhouse witness who was to be their main witness against Thomas. Borkowski said he will rule Monday, the same day opening statements are scheduled to begin.