Fatal shooting in U.D. ruled third-degree murder
MEDIA COURTHOUSE >> A Philadelphia man was found guilty of third-degree murder Thursday for the March 12, 2016, shooting death of 35-year-old Shawn O. Mitchell of Upper Darby.
Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge James Bradley also found Jermaine Crosley guilty of possessing a firearm prohibited, but not guilty of criminal homicide, first-degree murder or possession of a weapon.
Mitchell’s widow, Nhashara Samuels-Mitchell, told the judge during a bench trial this week that Crosley, who she knew as “Wassi,” had lived in a shed behind their house on the 500 block of Timberlake Road since December, but sometimes slept inside the basement on cold nights.
Samuels-Mitchell said she was preparing to go to work at about 2:15 p.m. when her husband went into the basement to talk to Crosley. She heard a loud bang and sent her 8-year-old daughter to get her husband.
The daughter testified via closed-circuit television that she saw her father and Crosley struggling over a gun in the basement and ran to tell her mother. Samuels-Mitchell said she saw Crosley chasing her husband down the alley firing at him and yelled at him to stop.
A teenager working in the alley with his father that day also said he heard a woman screaming and looked up to see Crosley chasing a man down the alley firing. The daughter said she could see Crosley shooting from her back deck, but not who he was shooting at.
The victim collapsed at the corner of Timberlake Road and Patterson Avenue. He was transported to Penn Presbyterian Hospital, where he died following emergency surgery.
Philadelphia Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Albert Chu said Thursday that Mitchell had two gunshot wounds – one that went through the muscle and tissue of his left forearm and another that penetrating his left chest in a downward motion, hitting several major organs and blood vessels. Chu said the shot that caused the arm wound likely came from within an inch and that the single bullet he recovered from Mitchell’s body could have caused both wounds.
Crosley, a Jamaican native, also testified Thursday and claimed self-defense. He said that two days before the shooting, Mitchell had pointed the gun at his head, tied his hands behind his back and threatened to kill him. Crosley said he called 911, but no one came, and that he approached an officer on the street who said he could not do anything if Mitchell was in his house.
Crosley painted Mitchell as a sadist who would not let him sleep in the basement and often threw water at him while he was trying to sleep. He also claimed Mitchell forced him at gunpoint to sell food stamps so he could buy rolling papers and that Mitchell sold cocaine and large amounts of marijuana out of the house, “like 50 pounds into a big bag.”
Detective Phil Lydon said that if Crosley had alleged Mitchell threatened to kill him to an officer, there would have been a report generated. It was unclear whether Crosley actually communicated that to an officer or if he simply asked about the legality of Mitchell’s gun.
Samuels-Mitchell said the couple had bought the gun, a .357 magnum, for protection when they owned a restaurant and that her husband usually carried it on his hip. If he did not have the gun on him, it was stored in a bedroom or high up in a washroom by the back deck, she said. Samuels-Mitchell said she did not think her husband had the weapon on him when she talked to him that day, shortly before the confrontation with Crosley.
The day of the shooting, Crosley said Mitchell had directed two men to assault him, but he was able to calm them down. Later that day, after the men left, Crosley said Mitchell led him through the kitchen to the back deck to clean it.
Crosley said it became “extremely cold” and he could not get into the locked door to the house, so he jumped off the back deck and went into the basement to warm up. Historical weather data from weatherunderground. com indicates it was 59 degrees at 1:54 p.m. at Philadelphia International Airport that day.
Crosley claimed Mitchell came downstairs with the gun and said he was trying to sell drugs out the house. Mitchell allegedly told Crosley he did not want any police attention, then fired a shot from 4 or 5 feet away, grazing Crosley’s leg.
Crosley said Mitchell fired again, but again missed. He initially told defense attorney Jim Wright that only two shots were fired, but told Assistant District Attorney Michelle Thurstlic-O’Neill on cross examination that a third shot occurred while the two men tousled over the gun.
“I think he shot himself in the process of when we were tussling,” Crosley told Judge Bradley. “I don’t even know when he got shot. It was the police that told me he got shot.”
Crosley said he ran out the back door and Mitchell followed, so he kept running down the alley and stashed the gun. Crosley was arrested the following morning. He said he had slept in a park overnight and had a phone on him, but did not call police to report Mitchell shooting at him.
In his statement to police, Crosley said he fired the gun into the air after exiting the basement, but denied shooting in the alley at all Thursday. He later said Mitchell would sometimes fire into the air at night. Lydon said he had not found any prior reports for shots fired in the area and did not find any evidence that drug sales were taking place inside the house.
Lydon said Crosley led detectives to the gun, which had been stashed above a PECO box behind a house in the 400 block of Timberlake Road. Delaware County Detective Louis Grandizio testified that he was able to match a bullet taken from a basement wall and a bullet supplied by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office to the gun, as well as four spent cartridge casings.
Sentencing is scheduled for May 22 pending various evaluations and a presentence investigation. Crosley remains incarcerated at the county prison in Concord.