A woman whose former boyfriend was fatally shot nearly three years ago in Jeannette told a Westmoreland County jury Wednesday that she can identify the alleged killer by a tiny mole on his left cheek and by his stride.

Sharnell Jackson testified she was in Jeannette on April 13, 2017, just before the father of her child, Michael Wilson, 32, of West Mifflin was gunned down on Clay Avenue. She said it wasn’t until she was shown video of the shooting and footage recorded inside a nearby convenience store that she was able to tell police she believed the killer was Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee, and not his twin brother.

“It was the way he walked, the way his stride is. It is different than Dwayne walks. Dwayne had a graceful walk. Darrelle always walked hunched over and like he was in a rush,” Jackson testified during the second day of the criminal homicide trial for Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee.

Prosecutors contend Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee, 30, of Penn Hills chased Wilson along Clay Avenue and fired a dozen shots, wounding him nine times, after they argued outside a nearby Dollar General store.

Jackson told jurors she was in a romantic relationship with Wilson until they broke up in 2016 and remained friends. She said they spent the day of his death together before she dropped him off at a girlfriend’s home in Jeannette.

She testified both Tolbert-McGhee brothers and Wilson were friends and that she spent as many as four days a week for several years with Wilson and one or both of the brothers. She said she was able to tell the brothers apart by the small mole on the left side of Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee’s face as well as other characteristics that set the men apart.

“Their eyes are different. I never thought of them as twins. They look different to me. Darrelle is thicker,” Jackson told jurors.

Jackson identified Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee as the man she saw in three surveillance videos played for her in court Wednesday by Assistant District Attorney Pete Caravello, including one showing the shooting and another that showed both Wilson and the man police say killed him together in the Dollar General store only minutes before the fatal shooting.

Wilson, according to forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht, was shot three times in the chest and suffered wounds to other parts of his body.

Westmoreland County Detective Todd Roach told jurors that, based on evidence found on the sidewalk and street along Clay Avenue, that least 12 shots were fired at Wilson from an automatic or semiautomatic pistol. Investigators found one slug lodged inside a glass display case at a nearby thrift shop and another wedged in a door at a local bar just in front of where Wilson’s body was found, Roach testified.

The defense has argued that Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee’s twin brother, who died in a 2018 shooting in Wilkinsburg, was Wilson’s killer.

Two police witnesses told jurors that after he was arrested and charged with drug offenses following a traffic stop in Jeannette in December 2017, Dwayne Tolbert-McGhee refused to answer questions about the Wilson shooting.

Pennsylvania State Police Cpl. Nicholas Pelc testified the man police arrested in December initially identified himself as Darrelle Tolbert-McGhee and showed them a federal identification with that name. After police discovered a second card in his possession with the other brother’s name, the man they had in custody told them he was Dewayne Tolbert-McGhee. Pelc testified fingerprints confirmed that identity.

Caravello said the prosecution may have one more witness testify when the trial resumes Thursday before Common Pleas Judge Megan Bilik-DeFazio. Tolbert-McGhee and at least one other witness could testify Thursday for the defense, according to his lawyer, Tim Dawson.

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