Police: Wilkinsburg man shot, killed man through closed door

A Wilkinsburg man barged in to a Larimer home and shot another man through a closed bedroom door, Pittsburgh police said.

Robert E. Harper, 45, of Wilkinsburg, faces homicide and burglary charges in connection with the April 8 shooting of Mark Anthony Jackson, according to the criminal complaint filed against Harper.

Officers west to a home on Winfield Street about 6:15 p.m. for a reported shooting, according to police. Jackson, 39, was pronounced dead in his third-floor bedroom.

Witnesses told police that two men – one of whom was later identified as Harper – walked in the front door and said, “You know what we here for,” and “The third floor, the third floor,” according to the criminal complaint.

Police wrote in the complaint that Harper took one of the residents upstairs toward Jackson’s room. Jackson opened the door, saw the weapon, and slammed his bedroom door. Harper fired one shot through the door and took off, according to the complaint.

Police said surveillance footage showed Harper and the other man first coming to the front door and then leaving the house and taking off on Renfrew Street, police said.

A jitney driver told police he picked up Harper in Wilkinsburg before the shooting. Harper paid the driver $20 to pick up another man in Homewood and drive them both to the East Liberty area, police wrote.

The driver and two witnesses who were inside the Winfield Street home at the time of the shooting picked Harper out of a photo array, according to police.

Harper was charged Tuesday, though he was already in the Allegheny County Jail on an unrelated robbery charge.