Jury deliberates late into night in trial of woman accused of aiding Holt after Officer Shaw killing

The jury in the trial of a New Kensington woman charged with helping her cousin avoid capture following the 2017 shooting death of police Officer Brian Shaw deliberated late into the night Wednesday but did not reach a verdict.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Rita Hathaway sent the jury home around 10 p.m. after they had deliberated for more than five hours.

Lisa Harrington, 33, is charged with helping Rahmael Sal Holt flee after Shaw was gunned down following an attempted traffic stop in New Kensington. Prosecutors charge that a day after the shooting, she disposed of the suspected murder weapon.

Harrington testified on her own behalf Wednesday and denied any involvement in helping Holt, a man she said was her first cousin but more like a sibling. Holt, 31, of Harrison was convicted in November of first-degree murder for Shaw’s killing and sentenced to death.

“I would not jeopardize my life, jeopardize my kids’ lives. That don’t make no sense. He wouldn’t ask me to. It wouldn’t even be a question,” Harrington testified.

The gun that was used to kill Shaw has not been found.

Prosecutors contended during the three-day trial that Harrington drove Holt from a home in New Kensington, where he initially hid out and left the suspected murder weapon. Investigators said Harrington took Holt across the Allegheny River to his girlfriend’s home in Natrona less than an hour after Shaw was shot and killed. Holt was captured four days later in the Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

Police said that the day after the shooting, Harrington returned to the Victoria Avenue home, retrieved a brown paper bag that contained the gun Holt used in the slaying and discarded the weapon.

Jurors are being asked to deliberate on four counts of hindering Holt’s apprehension and one charge each of tampering with evidence and possession of a firearm without a license.

Harrington told jurors she never drove Holt anywhere the night of the shooting. She claimed she picked up family members in New Kensington, drove them to her home in Arnold and then went to sleep.

The prosecution presented phone records that appear to show a series of calls between her, Holt’s girlfriend and a phone that investigators said Holt used following the shooting. As an explanation for the phone records, Harrington said other people in her home had access to the phone.

Harrington said deleted text messages between her phone and a 15-year-old nephew about the potential disposal of a gun were not related to the police officer’s shooting.

She testified that a day after Shaw was killed, she went to the house where police said Holt stashed the murder weapon to retrieve his clothes and marijuana. Harrington claimed that another one of Holt’s girlfriends lived there and that she was asked to remove his property.

Another of the home’s occupants brought up a brown bag from the basement that contained a crack pipe, Harrington testified. She did not leave with that object, she said.

“It wasn’t big enough for a gun,” Harrington said when asked about the bag by defense attorney Adam Gorzelsky.

Gorzelsky, in his closing argument to jurors, said police never conducted a complete investigation after initially identifying Harrington as the person who helped Holt and discarded the suspected murder weapon.

“How stupid would she have been to try something like that,” Gorzelsky said.

Gorzelsky said the prosecution relied on a series of witnesses who lied and falsely implicated Harrington to avoid their own legal troubles and that calls investigators said were made by Holt to arrange his ride out of town were actually from Harrington’s mother on a borrowed phone.

Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar dismissed Harrington’s testimony as a means to avoid any blame for her actions.

“It’s ridiculous because it’s not true,” Lazar said.

He argued that Holt and Harrington’s close relationship led to her being Holt’s first call as he tried to flee from New Kensington following the shooting.

“The way Lisa Harrington suggested this all happened can’t possibly have happened. There’s a reason Rahmael Holt made his first call to that cousin over there — she’s loyal to the end,” Lazar said.