'The system failed us': Family of victims in 2015 East Hills double homicide is irate over plea deal

The family of two women stabbed and bludgeoned to death in Pittsburgh a decade ago is furious over a plea deal they say the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office cut without their knowledge that could free the accused in 20 years.

Cesar Mazza, 35, is scheduled to plead guilty on Wednesday to two counts of third-degree murder in the deaths of Tionna Banks and her grandmother, Valorie Crumpton.

In exchange, the prosecution has offered him a sentence of 30 to 60 years. But because Mazza has been awaiting trial for 10 years, he will get credit for time served.

Prosecutors had previously sought the death penalty.

“They took a plea deal without even telling us,” said Robin Crumpton, a daughter of Valorie Crumpton and aunt of Tionna Banks. “You get 15 years apiece for two dead bodies.”

Crumpton said the prosecutor called her last week to tell her the deal was final.

“They said they took it. I hung up on them,” Crumpton told TribLive. “They clearly knew how (we) felt, and they didn’t care about that.

“We’re so devastated. They hurt our family so bad.”

The DA’s office did not respond to a message seeking comment on the plea deal.

‘Behind our back’

In May 2015, there was already a restraining order in place against Mazza, who had been accused of dragging Banks down the steps and stomping her belly when she was pregnant.

Then, after the baby was born, police said, Mazza fatally stabbed Banks 15 times. She was 19.

Mazza then bludgeoned her 72-year-old grandmother, Valorie Crumpton, to death with a fireplace poker at Crumpton’s East Hills home, authorities said.

Their bodies were discovered by police conducting a welfare check on May 7, 2015.

Witnesses told police they had seen Mazza with blood on his clothing and his infant son covered in blood when he went to his mother’s house a few days earlier.

Mazza claimed at the time that Banks had become irate and tried to stab him, showing a small cut on his hand, police said.

Police charged Mazza on Aug. 4, 2015.

The 2015 double homicide made national news, and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.’s office announced he would seek the death penalty against Mazza.

But the case languished as Mazza repeatedly clashed with more than a half-dozen defense attorneys.

It was scheduled, finally, to go to trial next week.

But last month, the DA’s office withdrew its notice to seek capital punishment against Mazza. And last week, the prosecution reached a plea agreement.

The case was originally being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney William Petulla. However, he left the office earlier this year, and the case was assigned to Deputy District Attorneys Ryan Kiray and Jennifer Berosh.

Robin Crumpton said they were not forthright with her over their plans.

“They did everything behind our back.”

A deteriorating case

Crumpton said she met last month with the prosecution and detective on the case.

She urged them to take the death penalty off the table — but not because she thinks Mazza doesn’t deserve it.

“I’m a realist,” she said. “In Pennsylvania, they’re not going to kill nobody. That was never going to happen in our case. So why would you keep tinkering with it if you know it won’t work?”

Crumpton wanted the case to go to trial and expected Mazza would be found guilty of first-degree, or premeditated, murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

When the notion of a potential plea came up, Crumpton said she rejected the idea.

“We refused it. We’ve been waiting on a court date,” she said.

The first plea suggestion, she said, was for 25 years.

“‘Do you realize he killed two innocent people?’” Crumpton said she asked the prosecution. “‘Why can’t we go to court?’”

But she was told the case had deteriorated. One key witness had died, and the defense obtained mitigation information about Mazza’s troubled childhood.

“I don’t give a damn what he has,” Crumpton said. “This man can get parole in 20 years now.”

David A. Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said it is best practice for prosecutors to consider the input of victims’ families in a case.

“The more serious the case, the more important it is to consider a victim’s input on a plea.”

Harris called the difference between first- and third-degree murder in Mazza’s case “a pretty steep drop.”

“If the plea is driven by difficulties of proof — those are legitimate reasons to change a plea. But that’s a very significant change going from first-degree death, to third-degree,” Harris said.

“If I was the family, I would be livid, too.”

‘Swept under the rug’

According to court records, Mazza’s case has bounced among six judges in the Court of Common Pleas.

It remained before now-retired Judge Donna Jo McDaniel from when Mazza was charged until 2018, and stayed with the late Judge Alexander P. Bicket the longest — from November 2020 to the end of 2024. (Bicket died in early December 2024.)

It was assigned to Judge Edward J. Borkowski in January, and he scheduled it for trial on Sept. 15.

Over all those years, Mazza had six prior defense attorneys.

He has been represented by the Allegheny County Public Defender’s Office since November 2021.

Since then, said Andy Howard, the acting chief public defender, Mazza has received consistent representation. Howard said his office has conducted a thorough investigation.

At a hearing in August, defense attorneys Heath Leff and Christopher Patarini told the court that Mazza grew up in a high-crime area and in a household where he witnessed physical and sexual abuse.

That type of mitigation evidence, Howard said, can help the prosecution see that a potential plea to a less-severe charge is appropriate.

“That kind of resource-intensive investment in the full picture of a case and an accused person is bound to assist the prosecution to see that there are more just outcomes available,” Howard said.

But Crumpton disagrees that there is any justice in the plea agreement.

“They gave this man every postponement he wanted. We got swept under the rug,” Crumpton said. “There was nobody down there that wanted to fight for us.

“The system failed us. I miss my mother and my niece.”