Alleged target in Wilkinsburg shooting testifies
Witness was wounded at cookout in 2016
For 15 minutes Tuesday morning, the man charged with a 2016 mass murder in Wilkinsburg and his alleged target faced each other in a courtroom.
Cheron Shelton, the 33-year-old defendant, dressed in a cobalt blue suit, listened as Lamont “Monty” Powell, wearing a gray, striped jailhouse jumpsuit, took the witness stand and described being shot in the back, hand, neck and chest on the night of March 9, 2016.
As the second day of Shelton’s homicide trial continued in the Allegheny County Courthouse, Powell described manning the grill where his sister Brittany Powell was living at 1304 Franklin Ave. on the unseasonably warm night before the gunfire started.
Powell’s brother, Jerry Michael Shelton was there. Another sister, Chanetta Powell, who was eight months pregnant, had arrived. And cousins Tina Shelton and Shada Mahone were there, too.
All five Powell relatives died, along with Chanetta Powell’s unborn child. Neither Jerry nor Tina Shelton are related to the defendant.
“It was one of the first nice days that year. Me and my sister decided to have a cookout. She asked me to cook the meat,” Powell recalled. “I honestly just remember cooking the food and then hearing shots and basically ducking and laying on the ground.”
Of all the victims, Lamont Powell intrigued investigators the most. They believe he was the impetus for the backyard massacre, alleging Shelton targeted him because he thought Powell had killed his best friend, Calvin Doswell, in 2013. No one has been charged in the murder.
“That’s what the ’hood was saying,” testified Tara Hardy, who used to live in the same tight-knit Homewood neighborhood known as Hilltop where Powell grew up. “Monty and someone else named Anthony.”
Shelton’s attorney, Randall McKinney, indicated during crossexamination that another of Powell’s sisters lived in Homewood next to Shelton’s mother on Nolan Court, one of three housing communities close together.
Police recovered surveillance video they say shows Shelton retrieving a long object from behind a residence on Nolan Court shortly before the shooting. At that same location, which investigators said had mail addressed to Shelton, police found a gun, ammunition and a bulletproof vest.
For nearly four years, Powell refused to cooperate with detectives on the case. He was arrested last month on a material witness warrant and held in jail until the trial.
“I just didn’t want to relive that night,” Powell testified. “It’s a nightmare. I take care of family things in house. I didn’t want to relive it in the open.”
Under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini, Powell said he had heard of Doswell and knew that people had said he “had something to do with” Doswell’s murder. He denied any
involvement.
Asked on cross-examination by Mr. McKinney, “How did it feel when you were accused of a murder you didn’t commit,” Powell replied: “Horrible.”
Powell was one of 11 witnesses to testify Tuesday. Another victim who took the stand was John Ellis Jr., 50, who must use a motorized wheelchair because of a spinal injury suffered in the shooting. Doctors have told him he probably won’t walk again and have discussed the possibility of amputation.
“I told ’em, ‘Cut if off,’”
Mr. Ellis said.
Mr. Ellis said that in 2016 he was staying next door to Brittany Powell’s house with his brother and brother’s girlfriend. The women were close friends. He fondly recalled the cookout — the pretty ladies, the hot dogs, the “fat cheeseburgers” that Lamont Powell was grilling — and his first taste of Hennessy cognac. People drank beer, played dominoes and cards and enjoyed the mild temperatures.
He was sitting in a chair when the gunfire started.
“I heard popping noises. So I said to myself, ‘Dag, did I get shot?’ Then I felt it, and I got up and started running toward my house.”
One gun sounded “regular,” he said. The other one was “loud, like some stuff you hear in the Army.”
Prosecutors focused on a social media post made that day by Brittany Powell about the cookout that said where the barbecue was happening — what prosecutors seemed to be framing as an unwitting road map directing the shooter to Lamont Powell.
Detectives had said before the trial Shelton and Robert Thomas — a former co-defendant whose charges were dismissed Monday by Judge Edward J. Borkowski for insufficient evidence and who was released Tuesday from the Allegheny County Jail — were alerted to a Facebook post that noted that Lamont Powell would be at the cookout.
Powell said he did not remember a picture of him at the grill being posted. But the next witness, his uncle David Shelton (also unrelated to the defendant), testified that Brittany Powell had posted live video on Facebook from Franklin Avenue that showed Lamont.
“He was at the grill area,” David Shelton said. “She got him on the grill enjoying himself.”
Julie Knapp was having fun, too. Ms. Knapp grew up in the house at 1304 Franklin Ave. She inherited it, and in March 2016 split time between Wilkinsburg and Squirrel Hill. She had taken on renters the previous fall — Ms. Powell and her 7-yearold daughter.
Ms. Knapp said she was happy to have them.
“I wanted to know that there was a family, people with children around,” Ms.
Knapp said, adding that she and Ms. Powell got to know each other. “We had a rapport.”
Ms. Knapp said she would give Ms. Powell’s daughter rides to school, and on the day of the shooting had taken Ms. Powell to a job interview. “It went very well. It was just a wonderful day,” recalled Ms. Knapp, who struggled with her emotions.
They stopped to pick up some items for the cookout. Things were jovial, with people coming and going. “It was happy. Brittany had told me that day, she said, ‘I feel safe here.’ She said, ‘I feel safe raising a child here, and my family is coming back together again.’”
At some point before the gunfire, Ms. Knapp left the party to go to Squirrel Hill to attend to some repairs at the house there. “Actually,” Ms. Knapp said, “it saved my life, I think.”
Ms. Knapp recoiled at questions by Shelton’s attorney about Lamont Powell, who asked whether she would have allowed heroin to be sold from her house or if she knew that Powell had heroin on him that police said they found. She said no to both.
Powell was not charged with having drugs, and prior to the trial getting underway Tuesday morning there was discussion with Ms. Pellegrini about such charges being beyond the statute of limitations.
Earlier Tuesday, Allegheny County police homicide Sgt. Todd Dolfi wrapped up testimony about evidence recovered from the scene.
Thomas Morgan, a scientist with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office, walked the jury through spent shell casings and bullet fragments that were logged into evidence.
The prosecution ended the day with the jury sitting in silence for more than an hour, watching a video montage cobbled together from various surveillance cameras in the Hilltop communities — Nolan Court, Ferris Court and Heart Court — on March 9 and 10, 2016.
There was no narration. Jurors remained attentive during long stretches when nothing happened. Occasionally, the boredom was broken by images of shadowy figures moving in and out of vehicles and a house, cars being driven, parked and driven away, but prosecutors did not provide context until afterward, when Allegheny County police homicide Detective Kevin McCue began testifying about still photos taken from the video.
Trial is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning with Detective McCue under cross-examination.
Ms. Pellegrini told the judge that the trial is moving more swiftly than the prosecution anticipated, and their case might be mostly done by Friday.