Pittsburgh man pleads guilty to fatal crash involving cyclist in Bell Acres
A man from Pittsburgh’s Marshall-Shadeland neighborhood who was high on heroin when he struck and killed a bicyclist in Bell Acres about two years ago pleaded guilty Monday.
Justin Michael Miller, 35, will be sentenced by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski on Aug. 18.
He faces a mandatory sentence of at least seven years in prison because of two previous DUI convictions.
Police received reports about a possibly impaired driver swerving on Nicholson Road at Wexford-Bayne Road just after noon May 23, 2020, according to Assistant District Attorney Alex Cashman.
When police tried to pull over Miller, who was driving a Ford pickup with heavy front-end damage, he refused to stop and almost struck two officers. He ultimately was stopped in the area of Boyle Road just before 12:30 p.m.
Around the same time, police in Bell Acres were called to the 700 block of Big Sewickley Creek Road for a report of a hit-and-run involving a bicyclist.
Curtis Brown, 51, of Ben Avon, was flown by helicopter to UPMC Presbyterian in Shadyside and died at 1:48 p.m. of blunt force trauma.
During an interview with police, Miller admitted to having used heroin that day and “bumping” into a person on a bike.
Cashman said Miller told officers that the drugs he used “must have been stronger that what he normally had because he was passing out while he was driving.”
Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2020 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of "Death by Cyanide." She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.
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