The alleged target of the 2016 mass shooting in Wilkinsburg, Lamont Powell, testified Tuesday, acknowledging that he didn’t want to be in court and was cooperating only because he had been arrested for ignoring a subpoena.
The second day of testimony in the case against Cheron Shelton, 33, revolved around forensic evidence, the mood of the party he’s alleged to have opened fire on and any social media posts about it. Shelton faces six counts of homicide in connection with the shooting that killed five adults and an unborn child. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
Powell, 28, described March 9, 2016, as a nightmare. He said he didn’t want to talk to detectives when they came to UPMC Mercy to interview him after the shooting, and he ignored the subpoena ordering him to show up in court Jan. 6.
He was picked up a week later on a material witness warrant.
“I didn’t want to relive that night,” he said. “I take care of my family things in-house. I didn’t want to relive it out in the open.”
Prosecutors alleged that Shelton, who is not related to any of the Shelton family members killed in the shooting, was bent on revenge, believing Powell was responsible for the 2013 murder of his best friend, Calvin Doswell.
Powell acknowledged hearing rumors that he had been involved in Doswell’s death. He was not involved, he said, and he told defense attorney Randall McKinney on cross-examination that it felt horrible to be accused of murder.
Powell said he didn’t recall much about the night of the shooting, but that his sister Brittany had asked him to grill at the cookout they were planning.
“I remember cooking the food and then hearing shots and then basically ducking and lying on the ground,” he said.
InfogramJohn Ellis Jr. remembered the food at the 2016 cookout, too. He was living with his brother, Matthew Livesy, and his girlfriend, Carla Lee, at the home next door to 1304 Franklin Ave. Lee was best friends with Brittany and Chanetta Powell, and Ellis got to know them, too.
Lee talked him into going over to the cookout.
“I’m greedy. I like eating hot dogs,” he said.
He said people were coming and going, playing dominoes and cards, listening to music and having fun. He said it was the first time he tried Hennessy cognac.
It was the last time he walked, too.
Ellis said he was in a chair when the shooting started.
“I heard popping noises and I said to myself, ‘Did I just get shot?’ It sounded like the Fourth of July,” he said, noting that he heard two distinct guns: A “regular one” and second that sounded “like some stuff you have in the army.”
Ellis suffered spinal cord injuries from the gunshots. He’s been in and out of hospitals with health complications ever since. He’s needed a wheelchair to move around since then, too.
Related: Hear John Ellis Jr. talk about the night that changed his life on the one-year anniversary of the shooting
Back at Ellis’ home next door, Lee was in bed. She testified that she’d gone home around 10:30 p.m. because she was “super drunk.” Less than half an hour later her friend, who was staying with her, slapped her awake.
“She said, ‘Wake up, they were just shooting next door,’ ” Lee said.
Testimony early Tuesday afternoon focused on who was at the cookout and what people posted on Facebook about it.
David Shelton — uncle to Brittany, Lamont, Chanetta Powell and Jerry Shelton, all killed in the gunfire – testified that he’d seen a video that Brittany posted to Facebook at some point during the day. He said it was taken at the Franklin Avenue home and showed the cookout, including Lamont at the grill.
“They were just celebrating a nice day out with a cookout,” David Shelton said of the video.
Julie Knapp, the owner of the house where Brittany was living, testified that she’d driven Brittany to a job interview that morning and that it had gone well.
Knapp said she was splitting her time between the Franklin Avenue house that she inherited from her parents and a Squirrel Hill apartment she shared with her former husband. Today, she said, she still lives in the Franklin Avenue house.
She said there were no disagreements or arguments while she was at the cookout.
“Everyone was happy,” she said. “Brittany told me that day, she said, ‘I feel safe here, I feel safe raising a family here.’ ”
Knapp said she left for the Squirrel Hill apartment, leaving her dog, Libby, at the Wilkinsburg home and with the partygoers. She returned hours later after neighbors called to tell her about the shooting. Her dog had been shot in the tail.
Tuesday morning’s testimony revolved around forensic and ballistic evidence. Allegheny County Police Sgt. Todd Dolfi testified to more than 100 photos of evidence markers showing spent .40-caliber shell casings, bullet fragments, spent 7.62x39-caliber casings, and bullet marks on the porch, side of the house and inside the home.
He testified that investigators also took a sample of suspected saliva found on the ground, along with a boot-print impression. On cross-examination, Dolfi told defense attorney Randall McKinney that the bootprint was not compared to any shoes owned by Shelton.
The saliva, which he said was found near the 7.62x39-caliber casings, did not match Shelton.
Dolfi also testified on cross examination that, at the scene the night of the shooting, no one approached him with information regarding the license plate number of a car seen in the area, nor did it come up at any meetings over the next two days.
Thomas Morgan, a scientist with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office, took the jury through each casing and each bullet fragment one by one. He said the 30 7.62x39-caliber shell casings had three different head-stamps among them.
Ammunition collected from Shelton’s mother’s home on Nolan Court had different head-stamps than the casings from the scene, he said.
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