2nd man charged in Baby Marcus shooting death
A second man has been charged in the 2013 fatal shooting of a 1year-old boy at an East Hills cookout.
Desaun Watson, 29, of Pittsburgh, was charged Tuesday with homicide, aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy and firearms charges in the death of Marcus White Jr., known as Baby Marcus.
Marcus was 15-months-old when he was shot at a cookout on May 21, 2013. Two of his aunts were also injured by gunfire. Police said about 20 to 30 people were attending the cookout.
Pittsburgh police said Mr. Watson is incarcerated outside of Allegheny County on unrelated charges.
According to a criminal complaint, an unnamed witness told investigators this year that Mr. Watson was among four people who drove to the cookout with the intention of killing a rival, identified in the complaint as “Hipp.”
The witness told police that he or she was at a party in East Hills with a group of people when they saw “Hipp,” who had sold someone
fake codeine. Mr. Watson — identified as “Homi” — pistolwhipped “Hipp,” the complaint says. Two other people then began exchanging gunfire, but no one was injured in that shootout.
The next day, the witness was with a group of people at a home on Standard Avenue on the border of Homewood and East Hills.
They received a call that Hipp was at a cookout, and the witness drove to the location with Mr. Watson, Dayjohn Parker and Troy Miller, who the witness said was the driver. (Dayjohn Parker was killed later that year in a shooting in Homewood.)
When the group drove up to the cookout, it became clear there was only a single entry and a single exit, so they drove back to Standard Avenue, where Darrell Ware replaced Mr. Miller as the driver, the witness told authorities. Court records do not show Mr. Miller or Mr. Ware facing any charges in the incident.
On the second trip to the cookout, the witness, Dayjohn Parker and Mr. Watson got out of the vehicle and began firing into the crowd while Mr. Ware remained in the driver’s seat for a quick getaway, the complaint says. The witness did not see “Hipp” but told police that Mr. Watson believed he was in the crowd.
Although the witness is not named, the only other alleged co-conspirator who was in the car that day was 22-year-old Gregory Parker, of Wilkinsburg, who was arrested last year and is alleged to have fired the bullet that killed Marcus.
However, the unnamed witness claimed that he or she was using a “Russian” 9 mm handgun, contradicting previous statements from another witness that said Gregory Parker claimed to have used a .45caliber Hi-Point pistol.
Police were not able to recover the projectile that killed Marcus, and the caliber that fired the bullet could not be determined.
Investigators later identified the getaway car, a black Saturn Aura sedan, as a stolen vehicle that was found burned after the killing. The witness told police that a group of people known as “the Braddock Boys” were supposed to burn the car and get rid of the guns, the complaint says.