Woman pleads guilty to running down, killing man she had been dating
A woman accused of running down a man she had been dating with a car in Homewood last year pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree murder.
Ausha Dakisha Brown, 27, will be sentenced by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Elliot Howsie on Nov. 28 and remains in custody.
There is no agreement as to sentence.
According to the criminal complaint, Brown struck Von Washington, 31, just after 10:40 p.m. April 19, 2021, on Kelly Street.
He died an hour later.
At the scene, police found a Port Authority Connect card with Brown’s name on it. Multiple witnesses at the scene identified her as the driver.
Police said that one witness saw the pair arguing near a large black SUV, and Washington then began to walk away toward his home.
Brown then got into the vehicle, “ran up on the sidewalk,” struck him and then ran him over.
“She was flying; she was real fast,” the witness told detectives.
They described Brown as “‘ragey like.’”
According to messages taken from Facebook, investigators believed that Brown and Washington had been romantically involved for about two weeks.
In addition to the murder count, Brown also pleaded guilty to causing an accident involving death while not properly licensed.
Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2020 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of "Death by Cyanide." She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.
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