Doubt cast on jailhouse informant in Wilkinsburg mass shooting case
The second jailhouse informant cooperating against two men accused of killing five people and an unborn child in Wilkinsburg last year has been identified by Superior Court in another case as an “agent of the state,” which now casts doubt on whether prosecutors will use him in the trial of the mass slaying.
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office, which earlier this month ruled out using another jailhouse witness over reliability issues, said no decision has yet been made on Kendall Mikell, the informant at issue in Wednesday’s appellate court decision.
In the case on appeal, Rodney Howard is charged in a 2014 homicide, and Mikell, who was already cooperating in another case, came forward to investigators after he spent time with Howard in the Allegheny County Jail.
Defense attorney James Wymard objected to the prosecution using Mikell as a witness, arguing that Mikell, who had been meeting with investigators, was acting as an agent of the state by gathering information from Howard.
Further, Mr. Wymard claimed that Mikell was found by prosecutors to not be credible in another homicide case where he had come forward with information. In that case, against Henry Little-Proctor, even though Mikell was initially a
witness, the prosecution chose not to call him.
Common Pleas Judge Randal B. Todd, who is presiding over the Howard case, granted Mr. Wymard's motion to suppress Mikell's testimony. He noted that Mikell had met multiple times with investigators and was told by them to “find out what he could” about other cases.
Judge Todd found Mikell and the prosecution had an implied agreement that Mikell would get consideration in sentencing on his federal charges if he cooperated.
The state Superior Court panel, in upholding Judge Todd’s decision, agreed with that conclusion.
“The information Mikell obtained from Howard was detailed and extensive,” wrote Judge Eugene Strassburger, noting Mikell met with detectives at least three times. “In these circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude the government implicitly encouraged Mikell to elicit deliberately information from other inmates, thereby fostering his hope that his efforts would pay off in the form of a lenient recommendation down the road. The sheer number of ‘confessions’ obtained by Mikell indicates that Mikell was not merely a passive listener or the unexpected recipient of incriminating information.”
In the Wilkinsburg case against Cheron Shelton and Robert Thomas, Mikell claimed he spoke with Thomas repeatedly in the jail and that Thomas told him he urinated in a garage in an alley near the shooting scene, and that he worried investigators would be able to obtain his DNA there. Mikell also related that Thomas said he had a handgun during the shooting and Shelton used an assault rifle, and that Shelton was stopped by police a few hours after the shooting in a field contact but was let go.