November 07, 2021 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: Crime and Police News
County detectives used cell phone records to track the accused killer of Karli Short to her Christy Park neighborhood at the time police believe she was murdered, affidavits state.
Isaac C. Smith, 25, of McKeesport is being held without bond in the Allegheny County Jail pending a preliminary hearing Nov. 24 before Magisterial District Judge Kim Berkeley Clark.
Smith is charged by Allegheny County police with homicide and homicide of an unborn child in connection with the Sept. 13 death of Short, 26, who had worked at a personal care home and did catering on the side. Smith was arrested Friday in Pleasant Hills.
County police and family said that Smith was the father of Short’s unborn baby boy, who was due in February 2022. Detectives called the slaying “pre-planned.”
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November 06, 2021 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
A city man has been charged in connection with the death Sept. 13 of the mother of his unborn child.
Isaac Smith, 25, is being held in the Allegheny County Jail on homicide charges after being arrested in Pleasant Hills on Friday night on a warrant obtained by the Allegheny County district attorney’s office.
Bail and arraignment information were not immediately available on Saturday morning.
Smith is accused in the death of Karli Short, 26, of Christy Park, who was found dead of a gunshot wound at her home on 25th Avenue just after 10:30 that morning. Short was five months pregnant with her first child at the time, family members said.
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November 06, 2021 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
* Correction: This story was corrected after publication.
Allegheny County police are releasing few details in connection with a death Friday afternoon at a home on Grover Street in the city.
The victim, Stephen Rucinski, 41, of McKeesport was reportedly mauled by a dog, but county police had not confirmed that information as of Saturday morning.
McKeesport police and animal control officers searched the neighborhood on Friday evening for a black and brown pit bull, which was located about an hour after the incident. The extent of Rucinski’s injuries was not publicly released and it was not clear to whom the dog belonged.
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October 29, 2021 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
One of the weapons that prosecutors said they confiscated in August 2019. (U.S. District Court documents)
The owner of a Versailles Avenue tattoo shop has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after prosecutors said he sold unlicensed and untraceable handguns from the business.
Richard Watson Jr., 33, of McKeesport also was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan to three years’ probation and a $10,000 fine.
Prosecutors allege that Watson bragged that he was a member of an “outlaw motorcycle club” and that he told undercover informants that “everyone in the hood knows that I’m the gun guy.”
But his attorney argued that Watson’s previous lack of a criminal record, and his stable home life and business, demonstrated that he was not a threat to the community.
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October 23, 2021 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
An Elizabeth Twp. man is in the Allegheny County Jail after McKeesport police said he assaulted a state narcotics agent while being arrested earlier this month.
Troy D. Cesaire, 41, faces a preliminary hearing Nov. 1 before Magisterial District Judge Eugene Riazzi. He is being held in lieu of $25,000 bond, court documents indicate.
The driver of the car in which Cesaire was riding was charged with driving under the influence of a controlled substance. Police said he refused to submit to a blood test.
McKeesport police said that officers on patrol noticed a suspicious vehicle parked in the 900 block of Union Avenue on the morning of Oct. 7. Police said the area has had problems with drug trafficking in the past.
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October 02, 2021 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
Cash, narcotics and a so-called “ghost gun” were seized Friday morning from a home in Duquesne, county police said.
The resident, Rashaad T. Fitzgerald, 29, is currently being held in the Allegheny County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond on charges of possession of controlled substances, possession with intent to deliver, endangering the welfare of children, tampering with physical evidence and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Allegheny County police said narcotics investigators have been tracking Fitzgerald for several months and obtained a search warrant for his home in the 900 block of State Street.
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October 02, 2021 |
By Jason A. Mignanelli | Posted in: Crime and Police News
Shantel Pizaro, mother of Steven Eason Jr., speaks to the media on Friday outside Allegheny County police headquarters. Eason was shot twice on Sept. 11 outside the Haunted Hills Hayride in North Versailles Twp. (Jason A. Mignanelli photo for Tube City Almanac)
“I can’t sleep. I can’t rest. I can’t even start healing, knowing that the person who killed my son is walking around,” said Shantel Pizaro on Friday.
Pizaro’s son, 15-year-old Steven Eason of Penn Hills, was shot Sept. 11 outside the Haunted Hills Hayride in North Versailles Twp. and died a short time later. Another teen-ager was wounded.
“We need to be leaders,” Pizaro said during a press conference at Allegheny County Police headquarters in Green Tree. “We need to instill good morals in our children. Someone knows something and this could be causing trauma to those young kids who know what happened. They need to let the truth come out.”
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September 23, 2021 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: Crime and Police News
“I don’t know if I can ever find peace” if the murderer of Karli Short (right) isn’t brought to justice, said her father, Brandon Short. A $20,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of her killer. (Submitted photo courtesy Short family)
The family of a pregnant woman found shot to death at her Christy Park home are hoping that a reward will entice someone to come forward with information that leads to the arrest of her killer.
At a memorial service Thursday morning at Renziehausen Park attended by friends, local officials and police, the family of Karli Short, 26, announced the $20,000 reward had been put up by Richard Bazzy, owner of Shults Ford.
Short’s body was found Sept. 13. Short was pregnant with a boy — her first child — at the time of her death, according to the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office. She was due to give birth in February 2022.
“We know the narrative,” said Short’s cousin, Troy Blackwell, a coach at McKeesport Area High School. “We know the first things that were in people’s heads. That wasn’t the case at all with her.
“That completely wasn’t her,” he said. “There wasn’t any underhanded stuff that she was involved in.”
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September 22, 2021 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
Three men face charges following an incident Monday afternoon in Renziehausen Park that resulted in the recovery of drugs and a stolen handgun.
Two of the suspects were apprehended after they fled police and crashed their car into a metal barrier along Eden Park Boulevard, McKeesport police said.
No injuries to bystanders were reported, but police said “multiple people and children were in the park area at the time of this incident, thus putting them in danger.”
McKeesport police said officers were dispatched to the Jakomas Blue-Top Pavilion just before 4 p.m. after 9-1-1 callers reported a fight was in progress. While en route, police said, a caller reported hearing what might have been a gun shot.
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September 14, 2021 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
A city woman was found dead Monday morning outside her home on 25th Avenue in Christy Park.
Karli Short, 26, was pronounced dead at the scene, the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office said. Her father told Pittsburgh’s WTAE-TV his daughter was five months pregnant at the time of her death.
“The pain that I feel is indescribable,” said Brandon Short, a McKeesport native, Penn State University trustee and former All-American linebacker. “A parent shouldn’t lose a child. That’s not the way that the world is supposed to work.”
In a prepared statement, Allegheny County police said first responders were dispatched to the home when a caller to 9-1-1 reported a woman was “down.” They arrived to find Short suffering from a single gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Short’s body was found at the rear of the home, the medical examiner’s office said.
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