Police: Woman killed man after argument

Stabbing occurred on Mt. Washington

A 25-year-old woman followed a 33-year-old man from a Mount Washington bar, asked him to walk with her and then stabbed him to death early Sunday, according to Pittsburgh police.

Ashley Henchell of Mount Washington is charged with criminal homicide and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of Ryan Carosi, also of Mount Washington.

Police believe Ms. Henchell and another man argued with Mr. Carosi inside Satalio’s Bar at 27 Bailey Ave. around 3 a.m. Sunday.

After the argument, police believe Ms. Henchell followed Mr. Carosi to a nearby CoGo’s parking lot, where she stabbed him multiple times.

Mr. Carosi fell to the ground and lay there, bleeding, until a passerby spotted him and alerted a police officer who was working a detail at the convenience store.

Mr. Carosi was taken to UPMC Mercy and pronounced dead at 3:50 a.m.

During an interview with police, Ms. Henchell confessed to stabbing Mr. Carosi but said she stabbed him during a physical fight, police said. According to police, she told them she was in the CoGo’s parking lot when she saw Mr. Carosi talking to Justin Allen, the man involved in the earlier argument in the bar.

She said she walked over to the two men, started arguing with Mr. Carosi and then got into a fight, according to the charging documents.

She said Mr. Carosi got on top of her and pushed her face into the concrete, so she “started stabbing him in his leg,” then got up and ran.

Ms. Henchell said she threw the knife away as she ran near Southern or Wyoming Avenue, according to the charging documents. She told police she went home, washed her clothes and took a shower until the water turned cold.

It’s unclear whether Ms. Henchell knew Mr. Carosi before meeting in the bar or whether there was any relationship between them.

Mr. Carosi moved to Pittsburgh about five months ago to work as a carpenter at DreamMaker Bath and Kitchen on Saw Mill Run Boulevard, said his younger brother, Devin Carosi.

Ms. Henchell lives in a duplex on Cowan Street. Her neighbors said they had never seen Mr. Carosi before but said Ms. Henchell had a steady stream of visitors to the apartment.

“Six months after she moved in she started having riffraff come over,” said neighbor Cliff Bland.

“We’d try setting her on the right track and it just didn’t work.”

Ms. Henchell was arrested in 2015 and charged with multiple counts of simple assault after she attacked several family members during an argument. Family members told police she punched, scratched and bit them during the fight, and at one point grabbed a man’s neck and choked him.

Ms. Henchell, who police said was visibly intoxicated at the time, later pleaded guilty to four counts of harassment — a lesser charge — and was sentenced to probation.

She is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on the homicide charge on Aug. 25 in City Court, Downtown.

The inside of Ms. Henchell’s Mount Washington apartment is filled with empty liquor bottles and sparse furniture. There is a fist-sized hole in the middle of a coffee table and a pile of children’s toys in the small backyard.

She has a young son, who sometimes stays there and sometimes stays with family, Mr. Bland said.

His fiancee, Lisa Booth, said they knew Ms. Henchell well and had worked together at LeMont Restaurant, before Ms. Henchell took another job.

“I can’t see her hurting anyone, but she is a drinker,” Ms. Booth said. “I’ve told her so many times to get away from that crowd.”

They would occasionally hear what sounded like physical fights at the apartment, Ms. Booth said.

But on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Bland heard something else.

For more than an hour, someone paced inside Ms. Henchell’s apartment, back and forth, without stopping.