Video of teen's slaying in Homewood shows shooter with distinctive pants

A video that captured the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy at a Homewood intersection clearly shows a masked man, wearing distinctive black pants with large white decals across the front, raise his gun and fire.

Dayvon Vickers, who was stopped at Frankstown and North Homewood avenues on his minibike, falls over. The suspect runs away.

On Wednesday, Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Matthew Robinowitz told a jury the shooter was Shaun Scott.

Scott, 21, of Wilkinsburg is on trial for criminal homicide, carrying a firearm without a license and possession of a firearm by a minor.

Just after 6 p.m. on March 30, 2022, police said Scott and another person were walking on Frankstown Avenue when they saw Dayvon on the minibike.

Scott opened fire, sending three shots through the intersection, Robinowitz said. One of them struck the teen in the head.

Pittsburgh police Officer Jeffrey Crawford said he was flagged down that evening and was the first officer on scene.

He recognized Dayvon, who he’d seen earlier that day, walking home from Westinghouse High School.

He knew Dayvon from the neighborhood and said the teen used to sell water in front of his house.

Crawford told the jury Dayvon wasn’t responsive, but he tended to him until an ambulance arrived.

Dayvon died a few hours later at a hospital.

Tracking the suspect

As part of their investigation, Pittsburgh police detectives pulled video from several surveillance cameras in the neighborhood and used it to track the movements of the suspect that evening.

Det. Justin Knight testified that the cameras showed the suspect and the male he was with go in and out of a store on Frankstown just before the shooting.

Video from inside, Robinowitz told the jury, clearly showed the suspect’s face. Detectives then circulated photographs from inside the store among officers in the department to see if anyone recognized him.

Two of them did. By the next day, they identified the suspect as Scott.

However, Scott was not arrested in Dayvon’s homicide until that July — after, police said, he killed another teen, Maleek Thomas.

Scott is charged with homicide in that case, too, accused of killing Thomas, 18, on Chauncey Drive in the Hill District on June 24, 2022, as he stood in a housing complex courtyard.

Scott’s trial in that case is scheduled for Nov. 10.

‘Keep quiet’

Robinowitz told jurors they would hear evidence that Scott’s cell phone pinged off towers in the area of the shooting, placing him near the scene in Homewood that afternoon.

The prosecutor also said the friend Scott was with messaged the defendant to say the police had questioned him.

“‘Keep quiet,” Robinowitz said Scott wrote back. “If they’re coming to talk to you, it means they don’t have anything on us.’”

During a two-minute opening statement, defense attorney Frank Walker told the jury that they would be unable to find his client guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Although he provided no specifics, Walker said the identification of Scott is unreliable and the investigation was incomplete.

Recovered murder weapon

Among the prosecution witnesses called Wednesday was Jaquae Horton. He testified Scott told him that spring that he “got his first ‘hack’ — a dead body.”

Scott said he killed Dayvon, Horton said, calling the teen by a nickname: Day Day.

Then, on June 12, 2022, Horton was arrested for carrying a firearm without a license.

Horton told the jury he was in a car with Scott and at least two other people that day when a police car pulled up behind them.

As soon as Horton said the police were there, Scott threw a gun toward him, climbed out of the driver’s side window — they were stopped close too close to a garage to open the door — and ran away.

The others in the car also ran.

“I ran last,” Horton said.

He was arrested.

Police later learned the gun Horton had was the one that killed Dayvon.

Under cross-examination, Horton said he received no benefit for his testimony.

Horton acknowledged receiving probation for the gun charge. When Scott’s attorney asked about an assault case out of Beaver County that had been withdrawn, Horton said that case had nothing to do with his testimony.

The pants

Sgt. Joseph Lippert also testified on Wednesday. He told the jury that he participated in a search of Scott’s home on Princeton Boulevard in Wilkinsburg on July 1, 2022.

It was there — in a large pile of clothes on Scott’s bed — that he said he recovered the distinctive pants the shooter wore.

Lippert held the pants up to the jury with its decals: the word “hustle,” an image of a chicken, a melting smiley face emoji and a skull and crossbones.