Alleged gunman represents himself at trial

He’s accused in West Chester robbery, shooting

WEST CHESTER >> The man who authorities say committed a home invasion robbery in which another man was shot in the back admitted being at the scene the night of the incident, but claimed he had only come to the house in West Chester to buy drugs and had not shot anyone.

“I was there for the wrong reasons, but robbery and shooting were not the reasons,” defendant Shacube Enoch Young told the jury in his opening statement on Monday in Common Pleas Court. Those who were inside the home on South Matlack Street “are not the victims. I am the victim.”

Young, 31, of Chester, is representing himself in the trial in Judge Patrick Carmody’s courtroom on charges of robbery, burglary, and attempted murder.

But in his own presentation to the panel of eight men and four women, Senior Deputy District Attorney Carlos Barraza said there was little doubt that Young had come to the house with the intent of robbing those inside of whatever cash they had on hand, and had upped the ante on the crime by shooting one person inside from among the group inside.

“When he entered that home, he was locked, he was loaded and he was ready for war,” Barraza said as Young listened intently from the defense table. “This is not a whodunit, ladies and gentleman. The person who did it is right there.”

The trial is expected to continue through the week.

According to Barraza, trying the case with Assistant District Attorney Anastasia Baranowski, the event occurred around 11 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2019, at the home in the 50 block of South Matlack Street. As a number of family and friends gathered inside the home, a man who no one knew entered the home with a handgun drawn, demanded money, and then fired a single shot at one of the men inside and stood up to escape.

That man, Zion Wesley, survived the assault, and later told police that he was afraid the gunman would target him again. “I

am just going to lie on the ground and pretend like I’m dead, because I don’t want him to shoot me again,” he told himself, the veteran prosecutor said.

Barraza said the gunman continued to terrorize the people inside the home, which belonged to an elderly woman, taking their wallets and searching for cash, before walking out the front door. But when he exited, he came face to face with West Chester Corporal Jason Maliki, who had responded to the report of a robbery at the address.

Unbeknownst to the gunman, a man on the second floor of the home had heard the shouting and gunshot, and had called 9-1-1. Within moments, the home was surrounded by officers from West Chester and West Goshen departments.

The gunman tried to escape by running down a set of breezeways that connect South Matlack Street with East Miner Street. He was found hiding under a car parked on East Miner and later identified as Young, an ex-convict from Delaware County. He had a gash across his forehead.

In his opening, Barraza said police recovered the firearm used in the shooting in the breezeway and tied it to the case from the bullet that had been removed from Wesley after he was shot. Police also found Wesley’s wallet, which the gunman had taken from him, outside near where he was taken into custody after being Tasered while trying to escape again.

But he said other forensic evidence — including fingerprints — that might have tied the gun to Young was not done because the gun had been spoiled as it sat outside in the rain that night. DNA tests proved inconclusive, and gunshot residue tests were not conducted because the number of people in the home that would have been exposed to the gunpowder from the shot were so high, he said.

“This is not a ‘what-happened’ type of case,” Barraza said. “Zion Wesley was shot in the back at close range by that man there,” pointing at Young.

But in his version of events, Young told the jury to question why there was not more evidence linking him to the crime.

“Mere presence is not an offense,” he told the panel. “It is not guilt. There are three sides to every story — the prosecution’s, mine, and the truth DNA should be there, but it’s not.”

According to Young, he was invited to the house by one of the people inside, who was selling fentanyl at prices lower than what Young was used to when he bought and sold drugs in Philadelphia. He told the jurors that he had been working various jobs at the time but started dealing drugs because he needed extra money.

“Yes, it was wrong. Yes, it was foolish. But it was what I did,” he said.

He said he came into the house and saw a group of people he did not know. While he started to arrange the drug deal by pulling out a wad of cash, a man came in the house behind him wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Before he knew it, he claimed, he was hit in the head from behind and a shot rang out.

“I don’t know who got shot,” Young contended. “All I know is this guy had a gun and I wanted to escape.”

In testimony Monday, the owner of the home — an elderly woman— said she watched from a living room sofa as the gunman came into the house with a gun drawn and fired a shot at her grandson, Wesley, while he was in her kitchen. Then afterward, he threatened her and began searching for money.

“He pointed a gun at me and said, ‘Shut up, old lady.’”

“What was going through your mind when all of this was happening?” asked Baranowski.

“That he was going to take all our lives,” the woman answered.

Although she was not asked to identify Young during her questioning, the woman left little doubt that she recognized him as the gunman.

“Why did you come into my house and stick a gun at my head?” she asked him during his cross-examination. “Why did you do that?”

He did not answer.