Teen gets 15 to 30 years after pleading to killing Homestead man, shooting 2 others

Corey Mickens, then 15, killed a man who had been his friend by shooting him in the head execution style on Feb. 5, 2019.

Two weeks later, Mickens stood up through the sun roof of a car as it drove through North Braddock and shot and wounded a stranger on the street.

Two days after that, Mickens and a group of friends planned a robbery. When the victim fought back, Mickens shot him twice, leaving him in critical condition.

Mickens, now 17, pleaded guilty last week in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court to third-degree murder, robbery and two counts each of aggravated assault and conspiracy.

In exchange, prosecutors agreed to a prison term of 15 to 30 years.

Chamain Lewis, the mother of the man killed by Mickens, said she didn’t think the sentence was long enough.

On Tuesday, as she walked to the front of the courtroom to make her victim impact statement, Lewis carried with her the urn containing her son’s ashes. She placed it on the table in front of the judge.

“This is what I have of my son,” Lewis said. “I have not been the same and will not ever be the same.”

After the proceeding, she said, “I think he should have gotten longer. I’m happy he admitted to it, even though he showed no remorse.”

Mike Manko, a spokesman for the DA’s office, said the sentence in the plea agreement was necessary.

“We certainly empathize with the loss this mother feels, but going forward to trial in this case would have presented challenging evidentiary issues,” he said.

Tre‘Quan Embry, 22, of Homestead was shot and killed around 12:40 a.m. on Feb. 2, 2019, in the 300 block of East 17th Avenue in Homestead.

A criminal complaint filed in the case said Embry got a phone call shortly before the shooting and told his mom he was going to meet someone down the street.

Less than a minute later, she said she heard gunshots, looked out the window and saw his body.

The complaint said messages found on Embry’s phone showed that he had planned to meet Mickens to sell him ammunition for a .380-caliber handgun. At 12:31 a.m., Mickens asked Embry where he was. Two minutes later, Embry wrote, “‘Here I come (where you at?)”

There were no further messages, and the first 911 call for the shooting came in at 12:36 a.m.

Police said a gun and baggy of ammunition were found by Embry’s body.

During the sentencing hearing, Embry’s loved ones testified that their family and Mickens’ family had been friends.

“I will never be able to forgive Corey,” Lewis said. “I want Corey to imagine if the tables were turned, and it was him who was killed how he would feel.”

Compounding her grief, Lewis said, is that her son’s daughter, who was just 2 when he died, was killed in a car crash eight months later.

“He lived for his daughter,” Lewis said.

She said her son was seen as the big brother in the neighborhood.

“Everybody loved him,” she said.

Police said that two weeks after Embry was killed, on Feb. 16, 2019, Mickens was the passenger in a car traveling on North Braddock’s Hawkins Avenue when he climbed up through the sun roof and fired at a man walking on the street, hitting him at least twice.

Then, two days later, Swissvale police responded to the 7300 block of Denniston Street for a person who was shot.

The victim in that case was set up on Facebook for an attempted robbery by Mickens and a group of friends who were pretending to be a female the victim knew. When the victim showed up, one member of the group pulled a gun and tried to steal the victim’s car keys. The victim fought back, and during a tussle, Mickens shot the person twice. Another member of the group, NeQuan White, also fired once, police said.

White’s case is still pending.

Both of the victims in the non-fatal shootings have recovered.

During Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, defense attorney Jonathan Orie, who represented Mickens in the two aggravated assault cases, told the judge that his client’s mother died when he was 10. Before that, Orie said, Mickens witnessed his mother routinely being assaulted by her boyfriends.

Then, after her death, the lawyer said Mickens essentially became homeless, staying on the couches of his friends. Two of the criminal complaints listed addresses of McKeesport and Homestead, respectively, while the third did not list an address.

“That path led him here today,” Orie said.

After listening to victim impact testimony, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Alexander P. Bicket asked Mickens if he wanted to say anything. The teen declined.

“No apologies? No remorse?” Bicket asked.

“I do have an apology,” Mickens responded. “But they’re not going to accept it. I am sorry. I hope I do grow. I’ve got a lot to learn.”