Jailhouse letters from accused killer read aloud during Day 3 of Wilkinsburg mass shooting trial

Cheron Shelton told “Pops” he had been working on getting rid of something before police picked him up on a probation violation and a charge of receiving stolen property.

It was at “Bubby’s house round the corner,” and it was “next to the lawn mowers, wrapped and ready to be tossed,” according to the letter Shelton is alleged to have written from the Allegheny County Jail.

The third day of testimony in the death penalty case against Shelton, in connection with a 2016 mass shooting in Wilkinsburg that killed five adults and an unborn child, included a full reading of two letters intercepted by police.

One was to Adrien Falls, the father of Shelton’s girlfriend, according to Allegheny County Police Lt. Venerando Costa, who read the letters aloud in court.

The other letter was addressed to “Brown Sugar,” who police say is Channel Falls, Shelton’s girlfriend and mother of his children. In it, he apologized for “putting the streets at the same level or a little higher than my family.”

He tells Falls to look up his defense attorney, Randall McKinney, and let him know what she thinks of him. Investigators are “fishing for something on me,” he wrote, but if they had it, they would have charged him. “They’re trying to place me at the scene.”

He wrote that McKinney told him they can only put him in the general area.

“There’s no statute of limitations on the charges they’re asking for,” he wrote, adding that McKinney seemed “cool” and “authentic.”

Shelton signed the letter, “Love, your babycakes.”

In a recorded phone call from jail to someone he referred to as “Brit,” Shelton seemed to speak in code, telling her that she should “call Paul Wall, send him some million bucks” and “if you for sure go to him, I’ll for sure be OK.”

Shelton has a sister named Brittany.

McKinney objected to the call being played. “I don’t believe that recording is a recording of my client,” he said.

In a brief sidebar — an on-the-record conversation between attorneys and the judge outside of the jury’s earshot — McKinney’s objection was apparently overruled, as prosecutors continued playing the recording.

In the call, Shelton refers to “old boy” and “old girl’s brother,” and he says he’s going to “send out a kite.”

The latter refers to writing a letter, Costa said.

Morning testimony focused on a search at the home of Shelton’s mother three days after the shooting. The search turned up everything one might need to make a 7.62x39-caliber rifle work: magazines, cartridges, a scope — everything except the rifle.

The caliber is the same as one of two guns used in the shooting. Prosecutors allege Shelton used the 7.62x39-caliber rifle to spray partygoers with bullets as they ran from handgun fire.

Deputy District Attorney Kevin Chernosky and Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini detailed the cache of weapons found in the basement of the Homewood home.

Jason Clark, a fingerprint expert at the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office, explained in detail the science of fingerprint analysis and how he matched a fingerprint on a .22-caliber rifle found in the home to Shelton’s left thumb.

“Are you aware that rifle isn’t even alleged to have been used in the Wilkinsburg shooting?” McKinney asked Clark.

Yes, he said.

Jurors heard from three Penn Hills police officers who encountered Shelton after they responded to a report of a prowler in the 3000 block of Hebron Drive in the predawn hours of March 10, 2016.

It was hours after the shooting, and Shelton’s name had not yet come up in the investigation. He is alleged to have told the officers he had lost his phone while drinking in the area and found it just before they arrived.

Chernosky hammered at the fact officers did not think Shelton was intoxicated — they testified he did not stagger, sway or smell of alcohol.

McKinney emphasized the fact Shelton did not try to run, he was cooperative, and police found no weapons when they patted him down.