Jury finds Cheron Shelton not guilty of 2016 Wilkinsburg mass slaying
Weekslong trial ends with an acquittal
Anticipation was high, and the courtroom grew quiet as the jury foreman read the verdict. Tears had already been flowing from family on both sides.
The silence was deafening. Nearly a dozen sheriff’s deputies policed the courtroom that was filled with sobbing family members who held tissues and awaited the decision. Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini warned family members to “keep their emotions in check” before jurors entered the courtroom, stating they would be removed if they did not comply.
Cheron Shelton is “not guilty on all counts,” said the foreman as he read the jury’s decision that ended day four of jury deliberations. The trial began nearly two weeks ago in Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski’s courtroom.
Several members of the victims’ family burst into tears, and some had to be helped out of the courtroom. Shelton was now acquitted of the slayings of five people and an unborn child in Wilkinsburg in 2016. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty against Shelton in the event of a first-degree murder conviction.
The jury foreman — one of six male and six female jurors — read the verdict at about 11:35 a.m.
Sobs grew louder as jurors exited the room and victims’ family members consoled one another.
Shelton also appeared to shed tears, and his family cried as well.
“He has two young children who he’s been kept away from for four years,” Shelton’s attorney, Randall McKinney, said Friday following the verdict. “... He was emotional; he was happy to hopefully be reunited with his family soon.”
Co-counsel Wendy Williams said “he looked back at his mother and his family, who were also crying, and said, ‘I’m going to see my boys, I’m going to see my boys.’ ”
Ms. Williams said. “He just said it over and over again. He asked me if he was allowed to cry and I told him that he was.”
Jessica Shelton, the mother and aunt of victims killed in the shooting, expressed her outrage and disappointment with the jury’s decision and said he “has the chance to kill again.” They declined to comment further.
“It seemed to me that Mr. Shelton was a suspect early on without much evidence to corroborate that,” Mr. McKinney said after Friday’s verdict. “They narrowed in and focused on him without following any other leads — I think they did that to their detriment.”
Mr. McKinney said he was confident after closing arguments, but “as the days dragged on,” he thought a hung jury would be possible. He said he knew if a verdict wasn’t reached Friday, then there wouldn’t be one.
Shelton will remain in custody after Judge Borkowski revoked his bond due to previous gun and drug charges.
He was charged Dec. 10 with criminal use of a facility and contraband conspiracy. Officials at Judge Borkowski’s office said Friday the charges are in connection with the case of longtime attorney Paul Gettleman, who was also charged Dec. 10 and faces smuggling charges after police said he provided inmates drugsoaked paper. Mr. Gettleman’s attorney Paul Boas previously denied his client’s knowledge of the incident.
A preliminary hearing is set for March 6.
DA’s office responds
In an emailed statement, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala thanked jurors for having a “good deal of thought and consideration” put into their decision.
He also commended police, saying, “It is very difficult for the police and my office to investigate and prosecute crimes when the number of witnesses is limited.”
“I would also like to thank the friends and family members of the victims for the dignity they have shown in the face of unspeakable loss and heartache,” Mr. Zappala said in the statement. “Members of law enforcement in this county and the members of my office will continue to vigorously investigate and prosecute all criminal activity that takes place. We owe that much to victims and to public safety generally.”
About an hour before the verdict was given Friday, court records showed Judge Borkowski had issued a seal of jurors’ names and addresses. While in court, he said he’s aware of laws that require the release of juror information and promised the details would be made public within a few hours or days. He said he must “consult with jurors for a timely release” due to concerns for their safety and privacy. The judge’s staff later confirmed juror information will be released sometime next week.
The trial began Feb. 3 after charges were withdrawn against Shelton’s former codefendant, Robert Thomas, for lack of evidence.
Investigators alleged that Shelton, 33, of Lincoln-Lemington, conspired with Thomas to try to kill Lamont Powell, whom Shelton blamed for slaying his best friend, Calvin Doswell, in 2013. That crime remains unsolved, and Powell testified that he was not involved.
Powell was a guest at a cookout the night of March 9, 2016, that was being held at his sister Brittany Powell’s house. Ms. Powell was killed along with her brother, Jerry Michael Shelton; her sister, Chanetta Powell, who was eight months pregnant; and cousins Tina Shelton and Shada Mahone. Three others were wounded — Lamont Powell, Tonjia Stone Cunningham and John Ellis Jr., who was partially paralyzed.
A large group of the victims’ relatives attended each day of the trial and have gathered daily on the fourth floor of the Allegheny County Courthouse awaiting word of a verdict since the jury got the case late Monday afternoon. Shelton also had a small clutch of supporters, including his mother and his girlfriend’s father.
Shelton was charged with five counts of homicide, homicide of an unborn child, three counts of aggravated assault, three counts of attempted homicide, conspiracy and six counts of reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors put roughly 50 witnesses on the stand to testify and entered hundreds of exhibits into evidence, including grisly autopsy photos, more than an hour of surveillance video, audio of 911 calls and the sounds of gunfire, a gun and ammunition recovered from Shelton’s mother’s townhouse on Nolan Court in Homewood, and a piece of porch railing from the murder scene.
Mr. McKinney, Shelton’s lawyer, put on one witness: Shelton’s mother, Desdrene Smith, who also testified for the prosecution.
Investigators built a circumstantial case against Shelton using surveillance video, cellphone records, search warrants, jailhouse letters that police intercepted, and a video that was secretly recorded of a jailhouse visit between Shelton and his father. They had no eyewitnesses, fingerprints or DNA putting Shelton at the scene. And they had no murder weapons.
Detectives believe that Shelton, who had gotten out of jail the day before the shooting after spending several weeks behind bars in a domestic dispute case, learned on social media that Powell was going to be at the cookout. They allege that he used his sister’s distinctive white Lincoln Continental to pick up an assault-style rifle hidden behind his mother’s house and drove to the crime scene to exact revenge.
There, police believe, Shelton hooked up with Thomas. Phones associated with the two men had been in contact leading up to the shooting at 10:53 p.m. Their communication ceased during the barrage of gunfire and then picked up again afterward.
Investigators think the two returned to Nolan Court, where they changed clothes. Several hours later, Penn Hills police got a 911 call for two suspicious people and encountered Shelton, who claimed he had just found a phone that he had lost in the grass. They let him go.
Police believe that Thomas fired a .40-caliber handgun, herding terrified partygoers toward the house while Shelton stood in an alley and mowed them down with an assault-style rifle firing 7.62-caliber rounds. There were 18 spent shell casings from the handgun and 30 from the rifle.
A Wilkinsburg detective responding to the gunshots testified that he saw a man getting into a white Lincoln. The man didn’t make eye contact, and the officer jotted down the license plate number, which he says he forwarded to investigators. That license plate came back to the Lincoln registered to Brittany Shelton and her mother.
Anonymous sources tipped police that the shooters lived on Nolan Court in Homewood’s Hilltop section and advanced the idea that the massacre was retaliation for Powell’s murder.
Police found a cache of ammunition, a gun and a bulletproof vest in Shelton’s mother’s house. They intercepted jailhouse letters from Shelton to his girlfriend and her father that investigators believe were suspicious; the latter one, police said, gave coded instructions for how to find the murder weapon, prepped for disposal. And they secretly videotaped Shelton during a jailhouse visit with his father. Investigators believe that Shelton acted out the firing of a gun and the starting of a lawn mower to get across to his father where to find the gun.
In his closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Kevin Chernosky told jurors that they needed to view the evidence as a total package, one that put Shelton in the right location at the right time, with motive and ample evidence of suspicious, incriminating activity after the shootings.
Mr. McKinney did not shrink from his client’s flaws in his closing argument. He admitted that Shelton was a drug dealer and said on the night of the shootings he acted like a “drunk idiot,” drinking Hennessy cognac from a baby bottle on Nolan Court because he was happy and celebrating his release from jail.
Despite Shelton’s criminal background, however, Mr. McKinney said his client was a loving boyfriend and father. Mr. McKinney told the jury that his client had a conversation with Powell’s sister on the night of the murders — she lived next door to Shelton’s mother — and he poohpoohed the notion that someone who could write tender prose to his girlfriend and her father was the kind of ruthless killer who could indiscriminately fire into a crowd and slaughter innocents.
In charging Shelton and Thomas in 2016, police wrote in a criminal complaint that an unidentified witness — later identified as Kendall Mikell — gave them information based on jailhouse conversations with Thomas. Mikell claimed that Thomas gave all sorts of details about the planning and execution of the shootings.
“So you mean to tell me that this isn’t messing with you, killing six innocent people?” the witness asked Thomas, according to court documents.
“Yeah, it’s killing me, crushing me every day,” the witness said Thomas responded. “I’m trying not to think about it! I’m trying not to become a vegetable. I’m trying to wrap my head around it.”
A second jailhouse snitch, Witness No. 2, told police that he spoke with Shelton while behind bars.
“He said that Cheron told him that he was ‘hitting them’ with the ‘chopper’ [slang for an assault-style rifle] and that he wanted everyone gone, and didn’t [care] who got hit or who didn’t get hit.”
Neither witness testified, as prosecutors decided not to call them. A third witness was also set to testify, but at the last minute, prosecutors decided not to use him, leading Judge Borkowski to dismiss the homicide charges against Thomas for lack of evidence.
Mr. McKinney and his cocounsel, Wendy Williams, argued that there was prosecutorial misconduct. They alleged that police and prosecutors paid witnesses and helped with relocating them but did not disclose that information to the defense, as the rules require. The DA’s office denied the allegations.