A Pittsburgh man charged with killing his sister in the apartment they shared is scheduled to appear later this month before a district judge, who will determine if he will face trial.
Aaron Charles Martin, 27, was arrested last month after police were dispatched to his apartment in the city’s Greenfield neighborhood for a domestic dispute and found his sister dead from gunshot wounds.
Martin’s preliminary hearing is set for March 27.
The Allegheny County Public Defenders’ Office, which is representing Martin, declined comment Wednesday.
Pittsburgh police were dispatched around 2 p.m. Feb. 8 to 789 Montclair St., according to a criminal complaint. They had been there before.
Four officers arrived at Apartment 5. The front door was unlocked, and police found Charlee Martin laying motionless on a blood-covered floor, the complaint said. Police said she “had been deceased for a while.”
The victim, 26, who lived with her brother, had been shot four times, including once in the neck, authorities said.
Responding officers said they found four spent bullet casings in the top-floor apartment — three near the corpse and one on a bedroom dresser.
Officers doing a protective sweep of the apartment then saw Aaron Martin laying on a nearby bed with his arms out to his sides and feet on the floor, the complaint said.
Police took Martin into custody and confiscated five iPhones at the scene as evidence, the complaint said. The suspect fought with officers and spit on them while being taken away, according to the complaint.
‘State of psychosis’
Police said they had received at least three calls earlier that week requesting welfare checks for Charlee Martin. A witness told police she had missed multiple days of work.
Officers went to the apartment at least twice but never made contact with either of the Martins, according to the complaint.
One caller told police Martin had “stopped taking his medication and has been smoking marijuana in the last few weeks,” the complaint said. On a different occasion, a caller told police they believed Martin was “in a state of psychosis.”
A witness also told authorities Martin called had them and “was begging … for forgiveness and for forgiveness from God,” the complaint said. That witness asked Martin about his sister’s whereabouts three times. Each time, the brother “became evasive,” according to the complaint.
Police said Martin later confessed to killing his sister.
Officers charged Martin three days after the shooting with homicide, abuse of a corpse and a drug offense. On the day of the shooting, they charged him with four counts of assaulting a police officer and one count of resisting arrest.
Martin was taken to the Allegheny County Jail and arraigned Feb. 13, court records show. He was denied bail.
