Appeal contends identical twin brother could have been killer in Jeannette homicide

An Allegheny County man serving a life prison term for first-degree murder claims the jury got it wrong when they didn’t believe that his dead identical twin brother was the killer.

In an appeal filed in Westmoreland County, Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee, 31, of Penn Hills, contends his conviction should be overturned because of insufficient evidence.

A jury convicted Tolbert-McGhee in January and he was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, along with a concurrent five- to 10-year prison term for a related weapons offense.

Michael Wilson, 32, was shot nine times on April 13, 2017, following a daylight argument in front of the Dollar General store on Clay Avenue in Jeannette.

Tolbert-McGhee did not testify during his trial. Defense attorney Tim Dawson argued witnesses were unable to differentiate and say which Tolbert-McGhee brother fired the fatal shots. The defense contended Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee was in Florida at the time of the murder.

“There was no eyewitness linking defendant to the murder of Michael Wilson. The defendant had an identical twin at the time of this murder and no eyewitness testified that they knew both and could distinguish one from the other,” Dawson wrote in the appeal.

Dwayne Tolbert-McGhee was shot and killed in Wilkinsburg 13 months after the Jeannette shooting.

Prosecutors presented a number of witnesses who during thetrial identified Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee as the killer, including one woman who said she exchanged telephone numbers with him in the store minutes before the shooting.

Wilson’s girlfriend also told jurors that she could tell the Tolbert-McGhee brothers apart and identified him as the man prosecutors said was on surveillance video taken from security cameras near the scene before and after the murder.