Jeannette man pleads guilty to reduced charge for 2018 fatal fire

Carol Geiger said the fire that swept through her mother’s Jeannette home in 2018 did more than just destroy her family’s memories.

“The most important thing you took from me or my family was my mother, the matriarch of our family. She was a single mother of four children. She went back to school to finish her nursing degree. She was a rock climber, she took flying lessons,” Geiger said during a hearing for the man prosecutors say set the blaze that killed 87-year-old Shirley Kocherans, injured her granddaughter and left about a dozen people homeless.

Brian Eric Rendon, 38, of Jeannette on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor for his role in Kocherans’ death. Prosecutors said Rendon set fire to the back porch of a six-unit row house complex on South Seventh Street.

Originally charged with criminal homicide and separate counts of second- and third-degree murder, Rendon pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, arson and reckless endangerment.

“While this was not the resolution we hoped for in this case, the judge’s rulings regarding key pieces of evidence severely handicapped our ability to properly take this to trial and secure a murder conviction,” Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli said in a written statement. “With the victims’ consent, Brian Rendon’s admission of guilt today assures time spent behind bars, while also bringing closure to this case after five years.”

Rendon also pleaded guilty to one felony charge of arson in connection with another fire, which police said he set at his home on Railroad Street in Jeannette two days before the fatal blaze April 9.

Rendon in 2021 rejected a deal to plead guilty to third-degree murder and maintained his innocence as the criminal case against him moved through the court system for five years.

During that period, Rendon received mental health treatment and his defense lawyers successfully argued to have his confessions barred from evidence. Last fall, Common Pleas Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio ruled Rendon’s intellectual deficiencies prevented him from understanding his constitutional right to not speak with police.

The case again appeared headed for trial last month until prosecutors obtained recordings of more than 400 telephone conversations Rendon had while in jail, including several that investigators say included admissions of guilt.

Assistant Public Defender Jennifer DeFlitch said Rendon agreed to plead guilty to the reduced charge to limit the risk of a potentially long sentence if he was convicted of homicide. If convicted of second-degree murder, which is a killing that occurs during the commission of another felony, Rendon faced a potential life prison term.

“This was a risk benefit,” DeFlitch said. “My expectation is he will get a time-served sentence.”

Prosecutors pitched a sentence of time served to five years in prison, but that proposal was not part of the final plea deal. The judge said she will decide Rendon’s sentence at a hearing in about three months.

Rendon has been in jail for more than five years since his arrest. DeFlitch said the sentencing delay will allow time for social service workers to find a location where he can live once he is released from jail.

Kocherans’ family members testified they approved of the plea deal, including Geiger’s daughter, who at the time of the fire was living with her grandmother and was injured as she jumped to safety from an upstairs window.

Jillian Anastasiu suffered a fractured spine and other injuries and said she still experiences pain, fear and guilt related to her survival and her grandmother’s death.

“I forgive you, and I hope you realize you are also being given a second chance,” Anastasiu said.