Prosecution rests in case of woman slain before informing

Attorney Blaine Jones was waiting at his Downtown Pittsburgh office on Aug. 22, 2014, for his client Tina Crawford to arrive.

He said they were going to meet about her activities as a heroin courier for Price Montgomery and then walk down to the federal courthouse for a lateafternoon “debriefing” session with Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Nescott.

But she didn’t show up. He called her cell phone twice and left messages. It was strange for her not to answer. He’d set up the meeting a few days earlier after she came to him about her heroin trafficking. Where was she?

Finally he called Mr. Nescott because he didn’t want the veteran prosecutor to waste his time if Ms. Crawford was backing out.

“You haven’t heard?” Mr. Nescott asked.

“Heard what?”

“Tina was murdered,” Mr. Nescott said.

Ms. Crawford had been gunned down that afternoon inside her mother’s garage on Cherokee Street in the Hill District. She was 34.

“I threw the phone down,” Mr. Jones told a federal jury on Thursday during the trial of Montgomery and his top associate, James Perrin.

Montgomery is accused of killing Ms. Crawford to prevent her from talking to federal prosecutors about his alleged heroin ring. He is also charged with numerous drug and gun counts in relation to heroin trafficking, as is Perrin.

The government rested its case after Mr. Jones’ testimony.

Earlier in the day, an expert in cell phone analysis formerly with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives showed the jury extensive spreadsheets and maps indicating Montgomery’s movements and calls before and after the killing.

The evidence presented by Stan Brue, who now is a contractor with the Detroit police homicide unit, showed Montgomery and Ms. Crawford both in the vicinity of the Newark, N.J., airport on April 27 and May 7, 2014. Wiretaps played for the jury earlier in the trial recorded them talking to each other on those dates.

State and federal agents maintain that Ms. Crawford rented cars and drove to Newark to pick up heroin for Montgomery starting in 2013. He traveled there separately and met her nearby, then bought

heroin from the man identified as his source, Jermaine Hartwell, who is in federal prison.

He would meet up with Ms. Crawford and put a bag of heroin into her car, and she would drive back to Pittsburgh. Then, according to testimony, he returned home and retrieved the bag after a few days.

Mr. Brue’s analysis, based on cell phone tower signal records, showed that Montgomery appeared to be using two cell phones, both purchased at a Walmart in New Jersey. One was used to make multiple unanswered calls to a former girlfriend’s number in New Jersey prior to the killing on Aug. 22, records show. After the killing, that phone went silent until it was used again to make a call to Elizabeth, N.J., on Aug. 24.

Tracking of a second phone, which agents contend Montgomery later dropped at the scene of the slaying, shows the signal traveling on Aug. 20 and 21 from Pittsburgh to New Jersey and then back to Pittsburgh.

It’s that phone that prosecutors say directly ties Montgomery to the killing. Police said they found it on a sidewalk at the house next door to the scene and recovered his DNA from it.

Prosecutors believe Montgomery and a co-conspirator, Glenn Thomas, shot Ms. Crawford eight times and wounded her mother, Patsy, who was going to drive her to Mr. Jones’ law office that day.

Thomas has pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact for ditching the getaway car, but he was not charged with murder.

Most of the government’s case has focused on Montgomery.

Perrin’s name has rarely come up, although the wiretaps and some witness testimony referred to a man named “Shitty,” which is Perrin’s nickname. A convicted felon who cut a deal with prosecutors to get out of federal prison early also said this week that he stole a cache of guns from his brother in Beaver County and sold them to “Shitty.” One of those guns, prosecutors contend, fired .22-caliber Magnum ammunition. Police found .22 Magnum casings at the scene of the killing.

The trial will continue Friday as the defense presents its case.