Suspect in fatal Derry Township shooting to face trial as details emerge during closed hearing

Nathan Quidetto wasn’t gone long from a Unity home early July 20, said Triston M. Clawson.

In the hours after Quidetto returned to Dorothy Patch, he was “hysterically crying” and Clawson learned he had a gun.

“‘I know we have a hit list, but I think I killed an innocent person,’” Clawson, 31, testified Friday that Quidetto told him.

The Tribune-Review on Monday received a recorded transcript of the preliminary hearing, which was closed to the public.

State police believe Quidetto, 20, fired four shots outside of a Derry Township home at 4 a.m. in apparent retaliation over a drug deal gone wrong. A bullet hit Tracy Marie Squib, 52, as she slept. She later died at a hospital. The target of the shooting did not live at the house, police said.

Defense attorney Emily Smarto said testimony at the hearing did not show that he intended to kill someone.

Homicide and related charges against Quidetto, however, were ordered held for court after the 30-minute hearing.

The hearing was closed in an effort to prevent the spread of covid-19. District Judge Mark Bilik said he opted for safety and attorneys, investigators, a witness and two of Squib’s family members were the only ones present in his small courtroom.

President Judge Rita Donovan Hathaway said she permitted limiting the number of people in court but didn’t intend to keep journalists out of the hearing. Quidetto waited outside with sheriff’s deputies after his attorney waived his appearance.

Trooper Paige Shreffler said investigators found four bullet holes in the side of Squib’s house and three shell casings on Pandora Road. Tracy Squib woke and told her husband that something had bitten her, according to testimony. Her two children were home at the time but were not hurt.

Police have not said how they connected Quidetto to the shooting. Shreffler said she interviewed him July 22 and learned that Quidetto was searching for a man involved in a botched drug transaction who he believed lived on that road.

When Quidetto thought he saw the man’s vehicle parked in front of a house, he stopped on the street and fired, Shreffler said.

“Three of them were up high and the bottom one was low, and that was the one that was level with Tracy sleeping in her bed and ultimately struck her,” Shreffler testified. “He told me he shot into the house and he stated that he heard the bullets hit the house and it sounded like they were hitting a door.”

Later, Clawson said he dropped Quidetto off at a gas station. State police pulled Clawson over a couple days later for a purported traffic violation and asked him about Quidetto’s whereabouts. Troopers eventually found Quidetto during a traffic stop July 22.

A series of safety measures have been added in all of Westmoreland County’s courtrooms as judges grapple with decisions that go beyond the outcome of a case. An emergency declaration shut down court operations for weeks. In May, judges’ schedules started resuming amid plexiglass barriers.

Quidetto is being held without bond in the Westmoreland County Prison.