Witness testifies to chaos of 2016 Wilkinsburg shooting scene as defense attempts to discredit police evidence

Bleeding from her own gunshot wound, Tonjia Cunningham begged Tina Shelton to stay alive.

“Tina, Tina, Tina.”

“Talk to me.”

“Tina, Tina, Tina, Tina.”

“Don’t you (expletive) die on me,” she wailed.

Jurors in Cheron Shelton’s murder trial heard the recording of the call Cunningham placed to 911 just before 11 p.m. March 9, 2016 — the day Shelton is accused of turning a family cookout along Franklin Avenue in Wilkinsburg into a shooting scene in which five adults and an unborn child were killed. Shelton, who is not related to Tina Shelton or her family, faces six counts of homicide and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Cunningham didn’t know her phone still was connected to Allegheny County’s emergency dispatch center while she was screaming for her best friend to live. Cunningham testified she had only recently met Tina’s family. The two were going to go to the gym, but Tina first wanted to swing by her cousin Brittany’s house.

The Shelton and Powell family wanted a family photo: Brittany Powell, Lamont Powell, Tina Shelton, Jerry Michael Shelton and Chanetta Powell. Cunningham snapped the photo and handed the phone back to whomever it belonged when she looked to her right.

“I saw someone looking over the fence with what looked to me like a gun,” she testified.

Moments later, she said, she heard a shot and felt something on her leg.

Cunningham said she doesn’t remember how many gunshots, just that she heard them: Several “pop pop pops” followed by loud, echoing booms.

Defense attorney Randall McKinney said Shelton, 33, wasn’t the gunman and told jurors in his opening statement that Wilkinsburg Detective Michael Adams is lying.

Adams provided what is considered to be key evidence linking Shelton to the crime — the license plate number of a Lincoln Continental that Adams said he noted because there was a suspicious man behind the wheel.

Deputy District Attorney Kevin Chernosky said in his opening arguments that Shelton — who now stands trial alone after a judge dismissed charges against former co-defendant Robert Thomas — would have gotten away with the shooting if not for Adams.

Adams was nearby, Chernosky said, and heard the gunfire before anyone called 911. He drove slowly down Franklin Avenue looking for anyone or anything that could lead him to the scene.

Chernosky said Adams saw a man acting suspiciously in a car near the scene and made note of the license plate.

McKinney spoke incredulously when describing how Adams is the only person who saw the suspect and the car, and questioned why, if the man was so suspicious, he didn’t stop him and question him. He said Adams can’t find the paper on which he wrote down the license plate.

“The evidence will show that Detective Adams is lying to you,” McKinney said.

During questioning, McKinney dug into perceived inconsistencies between Adams’ testimony Monday and his testimony during prior hearings.

Adams said Monday that, when he pulled his Crown Victoria next to the man later identified as Shelton, he stared at him for about five seconds. McKinney pointed to testimony at a 2016 hearing in which Adams said he stared for about 60 seconds.

Adams said he expected the man to look over and then he’d motion for him to roll down his window. Instead, the man stared straight ahead.

McKinney’s implication was Adams gave the details to bolster the evidence Allegheny County Police had against Shelton.

“I thought it was weird,” Adams said of the man lack of response, but he said he assumed the man was zoned out or tired. He said police had no description of any suspects — first responders hadn’t even made it to the scene yet.

Wilkinsburg Officer Donald Hamlan arrived first, flagged down by Cunningham at the front of the home. Cunningham testified she directed Hamlan to Lamont Powell, who was bleeding from gunshot wounds on the front porch.

He had crawled there from the back porch, where the shooting occurred, Cunningham said. She found him when she felt safe enough to get up from the back porch and run inside. There was no land line, Lamont Powell told her, and her cellphone was in the car. She was scared get it.

“He said I had to because I was the only one who could,” she said. “So I did.”

At some point, Cunningham said, she turned her attention to the children in the house. She grabbed a young girl and ran to a nearby home.

“I said, ‘Please be a big girl for me and stay in the house,’” she said. Cunningham went back and found a young boy looking down at Lamont Powell, who still lay bleeding on the porch. She rushed the boy elsewhere and told Powell to keep talking to himself — to keep himself alive.

Then she told the police to get to Tina.

“Everyone else was dead. She was still breathing,” Cunningham said. “I wanted her to live.”

She said it was only later that she realized she had been shot, too.

Correction: This story was amended to correct the name of Jerry Michael Shelton.