Man who killed college student in 2004 gets 5 years for dealing fentanyl

A New Kensington man who killed a woman 15 years ago in a case of mistaken identity is headed to federal prison for five years for dealing fentanyl.

U.S. District Judge David Cercone on Thursday imposed that term on Thomas

Vaughn Kelly Jr., 34, who had pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.

Kelly had been the target of an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Pittsburgh police, although his public defender, Sarah Levin, said there is no evidence her client is“anything other than an unsophisticated, street-level dealer.”

He faced a mandatory minimum of 60 months under federal guidelines.

Kelly grew up surrounded by crime and poverty and has been in trouble with the law since he was 12.

At 13, he was accidentally shot in the leg during a basement party on the North Side when someone dropped a gun and it went off.

Ms. Levin said he was out of school for months, couldn’t walk for a year and “turned to the streets.”

He made the news in 2004 at age 17 after he shot and killed Carma Reed, a Duquesne University honors student.

Ms. Reed was a passenger in a car driven by her sister when Kelly shot her as the car idled, waiting to make a turn, at a Fineview intersection.

Kelly pleaded guilty to the killing in 2006.

In apologizing, he explained that some gang members had earlier in the day opened fire on him on the North Side. He escaped and hid at a relative’s house in

Fineview, then started driving home.

But he said as he drove, he thought he saw the same car the gangsters had been driving. He said he thought someone was lowering a window in preparation to shoot him, so he opened fire on the car.

Kelly was sentenced to 12.5 to 25 years in state prison and was released in 2018.