Pitt student’s accused killer held for trial on all charges
Rebecca Kubiczki missed her alarm.
The morning of Oct. 8, she was supposed to go with her roommate, Alina Sheykhet, and Ms. Sheykhet’s parents to the Paws for the Cure walk at Hartwood Acres.
But Ms. Kubiczki woke up after 8:30 a.m. to the sound of another roommate and Ms. Sheykhet’s mom banging on her daughter’ slocked bedroom door.
“I just assumed she slept in like I did,” Ms. Kubiczki, 20, testified Friday.
But a few moments later, she heard the bedroom door break down and then screaming.
“Her dad was screaming she had a hole in her head.”
The 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student had been killed overnight in her Cable Place house in Oakland while everyone else slept. She had multiple wounds to her head and face; police later found a claw hammer and two knives in a sewer near her house.
Following a three-hour preliminary hearing Friday, District Judge Craig Stephens held Ms. Sheykhet’s ex-boyfriend, Matthew Darby, 21, of Greensburg, for trial on homicide and related charges.
Supporters of the Sheykhet family packed the Downtown courtroom, many of them friends and fellow students from Montour High School. They wore purple T-shirts featuring a picture of Ms. Sheykhet on the front, with the words “Our Russian Princess,” written in Russian, and “Love Shouldn’t Hurt” on the back.
Ms. Sheykhet’s parents, Yan and Elly, moved to the U.S. from Russia in 2000.
As Mr. Darby was brought into the courtroom by Allegheny County sheriff’s deputies, the Sheykhets sat in the front row, staring at him. It was the first time they had seen the man who had dated their daughter on and off for over two years.
Deputy District Attorney Stephie Ramaley called 10 witnesses, including Ms. Kubiczki, who described her roommate’s relationshipwith Mr. Darby as abusive.
“He was possessive. He wouldn’t let her do things,” she said.
Ms. Kubiczki testified that Ms. Sheykhet often would change the passwords for her social media accounts, and Mr. Darby would force her to reveal them to him. She told the court that he sometimes would access Ms. Sheykhet’s accounts and send messages purporting to be her or block male friends from contacting her.
Ms. Kubiczki told Judge
Ms. Kubiczki told Judge Stephens that she was home the night of Sept. 20, 2017, when Mr. Darby broke into their home. Ms. Sheykhet and her friends demanded that Mr. Darby leave, then called police. He was charged with criminal trespass and released on bond. Ms. Sheykeht also took out a protection-fromabuse order.
Eighteen days later, police said, Mr. Darby broke into the house again about 5 a.m. and killed Ms. Sheykhet.
Ms. Ramaley also offered testimony from a police officer at Duquesne University, as well as an Uber driver, who both said they encountered Mr. Darby in the hours before the slaying.
Officer Raymond Marr said he was on foot patrol about 3:30 a.m. at Duquesne. A man approached him and said he was having problems with his cell phone and was trying to reach a resident on campus. That man, who Officer Marr said was Mr. Darby, then asked if there was anywhere he couldgo to charge his phone.
Officer Marr escorted Mr. Darby to a charging station at the student union, where he said he remained for about10 minutes.
“The defendant seemed to be unusually nervous,” the officer testified. “He would not look at me when asking questions, swallowed hard. He would stammer.
“He made me suspicious.”
The prosecution said surveillance cameras caught Mr. Darby getting into an Uber about 4:20 a.m.
Mr. Darby at first asked driver Ganishar Bozorov to take him to Cable Place, the driver testified, but then asked him to stop a short distance away and wait for him for 10 minutes. About 10 minutes later, Mr. Darby returned to the car and asked him to wait 10 more minutes, Mr. Bozorov testified. The driver said he couldn’t wait that long, and a few minutes later, Mr. Darby called Mr. Bozorov on his cell phone, whispering this time, and again asking him to wait.
Mr. Bozorov said he could not, terminated Mr. Darby’s trip and left.
The next witness, Pittsburgh homicide Detective Edward Fallert, testified that between 4:15 and 4:55 a.m. five calls were made from Mr. Darby’s cell phone to Ms. Sheykhet’s. All went unanswered.
Detective Fallert said police recovered video surveillance from businesses in the area of Ms. Sheykhet’s house to try to track Mr. Darby’s movements. Video recorded just before 6 a.m. showed a man believed to be Mr. Darby putting items down a sewer grate a few hundred feet from the Cable Place apartment.
In the sewer, Detective Fallert said, officers found the knives and the hammer, which had hair and tissue on it.
The final witness was city homicide Detective Cliff Pugh, who said that when Mr. Darby was arrested Oct. 11 in Myrtle Beach, S.C., officers found in his backpack a shirt matching the one he was wearing in the various video recordings taken on the morning Ms. Sheykhet was killed.
In seeking dismissal of the charges, defense attorney David Shrager argued to Judge Stephens that prosecutors had no direct evidence of his client’s involvement in the crime and that they had failed to prove it was Mr. Darby in the pictures and videos submitted to the court.
“There is absolutely no forensic evidence to tie my client to any of those items,” he said.
Judge Stephens held Mr. Darby on charges of homicide, burglary, theft, flight to avoid apprehension and possessing instruments of crime, as well as a separate count of criminal trespass.