The family of a toddler fatally shot in 2013 is alleging the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office knew for years who killed the child but did nothing, and they’re now calling for the case to be turned over to the state or the U.S Attorney General’s Office.

Gregory Parker, 22, was charged June 25 with homicide and multiple counts of aggravated assault in connection with the May 21, 2013, shooting that killed 15-month-old Marcus White Jr.

The child, who became known as Baby Marcus after the shooting, was at a family picnic in the East Hills when the shooting started. His aunt, Shedaya Tyler, picked up him and tried to shield him, but she was struck by a bullet that went through her body and into the child’s, killing him.

For seven years, the case remained open and without an arrest. That changed last week with the arrest of Parker, who would have been just shy of 15 years old at the time of the shooting.

Paul Jubas, an attorney for Marcus’ family, filed a 17-page petition in federal court Monday calling for the case to be handled by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office or by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

“We want justice for Baby Marcus. We want competent and capable investigators and attorneys to get that justice,” Jubas said in a statement. “Neither (District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.) nor his office have acted in a timely manner. They had their chance. Now it’s time to let someone else do the work that should have been done for my clients years ago.”

Mike Manko, a spokesman for Zappala’s office, said the facts of Jubas’ petition are wrong.

“Yesterday’s filing is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law,” he said. “That said, our office deals with frivolous matters on a regular basis, and this will be dealt with in due course.”

Jubas said the family had given up hope an arrest would come until a piece of the puzzle came to light during an unrelated homicide trial in January.

A jailhouse snitch identified at the time only as Witness 3 was set to testify in the Wilkinsburg massacre trial. Cheron Shelton and Robert Thomas faced six homicide charges in connection with the March 2016 mass shooting at a backyard cookout in Wilkinsburg.

During days of contentious pretrial testimony, it was revealed that Witness 3 had allegedly confessed to the shooting that killed Marcus White in 2013.

The revelation came during questioning of a federal agent who allegedly had been caught on camera referring to promises made to Witness 3 — Parker — in exchange for witness testimony in the Wilkinsburg case. That confession would have happened in 2018.

Jubas and Marcus’ family, upon hearing of the alleged confession, immediately called for charges against Parker and for Zappala to resign, citing what Jubas called a “sweetheart deal” in exchange for Parker’s cooperation in the Wilkinsburg case.

Prosecutors ultimately dropped Parker as a witness after the defense alleged discovery violations. Charges were dismissed against Thomas the morning the death-penalty trial was set to begin, and a jury ultimately acquitted Shelton.

“The disastrous investigations and repeated failures of county detectives and prosecutors in Allegheny County has proven to (my office) and Baby Marcus’ family that (Zappala) and his employees are incapable of working on this case,” Jubas said in his prepared statement.

Jubas cited the federal and Pennsylvania Victims Rights Act. The latter became statute in 1998. It codifies victims’ rights to receive basic information about, among other things, significant actions and proceedings regarding their case as it moves through the justice system.

The criminal complaint against Parker shows long periods with no movement in the case.

The first tip came two days after the 2013 shooting when an anonymous caller said she had seen a black Saturn Aura with silver around the trunk speeding out of the East Hills neighborhood, according to the complaint. The caller said a similar vehicle was seen leaving the scene of a different shooting in the neighborhood the night before.

The criminal complaint then jumps ahead to January 2018, when a man identified only as Witness 1 was being interviewed about an unrelated shooting at a vigil in September 2015 in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood. The witness told police that Parker told him he had been involved in the “East Hills shooting with that little baby,” the complaint said.

Witness 1 told police that Parker said he had the only gun strong enough to go through somebody and hit the child, according to the complaint.

Detectives wrote in the complaint that they reviewed ballistic evidence in March 2020. The complaint then moves ahead to June 15, when a man identified as Witness 2 told detectives that Parker and others allegedly involved in the 2013 shooting were at a home together prior to and after the incident.

Witness 2 corroborated information about the black Saturn, which detectives noted as significant because it was only recently they were “able to connect and corroborate that the actor vehicle was a black Saturn” and that such information had never been made public, according to the complaint.

Police said Witness 1 identified a photo of Parker on June 24, the day before charges were filed. Witness 2 also identified a photo of Parker, though the day for that was not given in the complaint.

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