Justin Vellucci stories, Page 9
Man who fired potshots at Pittsburgh mail carrier gets 10 years in prison
A federal judge Wednesday sentenced a Pittsburgh man with a history of gun convictions to 10 years in prison after he shot at — but did not injure — a mail carrier on the city’s North Side in 2023. Authorities said Martinel Humphries, 30, on Jan. 5, 2023, fired four...
Driver faces trial on charges of being high when he struck man in wheelchair, breaking his neck
A 63-year-old man was high on methamphetamine and driving with a suspended license when he darted his car around a Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus in Duquesne last September and struck a man in a wheelchair, breaking his neck, police said. The driver, Nicola Migliori, of Monongahela, had his preliminary hearing...
Former UPMC doc pleads not guilty to trying to kill his wife in Hawaii
A former Pittsburgh doctor Monday pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to kill his wife last month in Hawaii. Police arrested Gerhardt Konig, 46, a former UPMC anesthesiologist who lived in Mt. Lebanon, after authorities say he bludgeoned his wife Arielle’s head with a rock and tried to...
Stomped, stabbed, then a bullet to the head: Pair charged in vicious Pittsburgh slaying
Police have charged two Pittsburgh men with breaking into a Knoxville home in 2022, brutally assaulting the man who lived there and videotaping part of the attack before killing him. Deonte Kidd, 30, of Lincoln-Lemington, and Le’Juane Powell, 31, of Beltzhoover, were charged last week in the death of Victor...
Man killed by Pittsburgh police urged officers to shoot him months earlier
A Hill District man whose February death at the hands of Pittsburgh police remains under investigation had urged officers repeatedly to shoot him during an encounter months earlier, according to a TribLive review of court records. Police shot and killed Maurice Jones, 33, in the Hill District on Feb. 5....
Sewickley’s bus route 14, which PRT has pegged for elimination, fuels the region
On a sunny March afternoon, a blind woman walked up to a bus stop on Sewickley’s Beaver Street, guided as much by her white cane as her spunky 6-year-old daughter. Kong Lee takes Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s bus route 14 several times a week to pick up the youngest of her...
Police charge man in North Fayette teen’s fentanyl death
An Aliquippa man extorted a North Fayette ninth grader for “sexual conduct” last year in exchange for fentanyl, which killed her, according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday. Shakeirs Deveye Foster, 28, was arrested Tuesday in connection with the May 14, 2024, death of Mia Pepper, 15. She is identified...
Pittsburgh teen charged with killing friend while they played with guns
A Pittsburgh teen was arrested Thursday after he accidentally killed his friend while the two were playing with guns, authorities said. Khyree Harper, 17, of South Side, was holding a pistol and exchanging gun magazines with Tyrome Gatewood in a Knoxville home around 1 p.m. Thursday, a witness told Pittsburgh...
‘I just tried to kill Ari’: Records detail ex-UPMC doc’s alleged attack on wife in Hawaii
At first, Arielle Konig thought her husband was kidding. They had just taken a selfie — at his suggestion, she said — by the edge of a cliff with a steep drop along a hiking trail in Hawaii. She got dizzy and moved away from the drop. Suddenly, according to...
Stowe driver charged with killing man who argued with passenger in McKees Rocks
Thomas Laron Smith drove his black SUV past a McKees Rocks market three times one night last December before stopping to talk to Floyd Wilson, a 51-year-old man sitting in his wheelchair nearby. Wilson started quarrelling with someone in Smith’s vehicle, but about what was unclear, according to a criminal...
Mystery deepens over ex-UPMC doc accused in Hawaii attack on wife
Gerhardt Konig smiled in the Oct. 5, 2018, Facebook photo as his new bride leaned into his side, holding a bouquet against her white dress. The photogenic couple stood under a garden arbor adorned with white flowers. “Best. Day. Ever.” Konig wrote. On Wednesday, some 6½ years later, authorities in Hawaii...
Jury finds man guilty of 1st-degree murder for killing ex-girlfriend in front of their toddler
An Allegheny County jury only needed about three hours Friday before finding Terrence Washington guilty of first-degree murder in the 2020 shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, Makeida Thompson. The prosecution had lobbied for the verdict, telling the jury that Washington meant to kill the mother of his child during a...
Struggling Pittsburgh Regional Transit proposes fare hike, ‘brutal’ service cuts
Pittsburgh Regional Transit is recommending drastic changes — a 25-cent fare hike and steep, widespread service cuts — to address what it said is a huge budget deficit and insufficient state aid. If ultimately approved by the transit agency’s board, the fare hike would take effect next year. Single-ride fares...
‘This ain’t no setup?’: Slain woman’s texts to accused killer reveal qualms just before her death
Makeida Thompson worried her ex-boyfriend — the father of their 1-year-old son — was setting a trap when he invited her to his grandmother’s Pittsburgh house to clear the air. Thompson and Terrence Washington recently had broken up. Hundreds of text messages they exchanged, read Wednesday by a detective during...
Judge finds New Kensington man’s killer guilty of 3rd-degree murder
A McKeesport man was convicted Wednesday of fatally shooting a New Kensington man after a fight outside a Pittsburgh skate shop and entertainment space. Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Randal B. Todd court found Zahvair Palmer, 23, guilty of third-degree murder in the March 19, 2022, death of Adam Cloud,...
Judge sends mentally ill Pittsburgh bank robber to prison despite plea for mercy
A judge Tuesday sentenced a Pittsburgh man to nearly a decade in federal prison for robbing three Shadyside banks, rejecting a request for leniency because of the defendant’s mental illness. The federal public defender who represents Rashon Coleman, 31, of the city’s East Liberty neighborhood, maintained his client’s schizophrenia and...
Ex-North Braddock cop pleads guilty to dealing drugs
A judge Tuesday gave a former North Braddock police officer two years of probation after he pleaded guilty to drug charges just before his scheduled nonjury trial. Craig William Gibson, 47, of McKeesport, had been accused of dealing drugs in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s...
Man shot on Pittsburgh’s Brookline Boulevard
A man was shot Monday afternoon in the abdomen in Pittsburgh’s Brookline neighborhood. Pittsburgh police found the victim, an adult who authorities did not name, suffering from gunshot wounds in the 800 block of Brookline Boulevard about 5 p.m. The man had been shot twice near Brookline Boulevard at Flatbush...
Man charged with using $190 bottle of tequila as deadly weapon heads to trial
A Beaver County man in January bought a $190 bottle of tequila at a Pittsburgh bar and smacked another man in the head with it, knocking him unconscious and fracturing his skull, police said. Now the accused and two other men involved in the sidewalk brawl are heading to trial...
PRT bus strikes girl, 11, in Hill District
A Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus on Monday afternoon struck an 11-year-old girl in the Hill District. The girl was taken to UPMC Childrens’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Her condition was stable, according to Adam Brandolph, a transit agency spokesperson. Details about her injuries are unknown. The bus, an 81 Oak Hill...
Clairton man charged in South Side shooting during St. Patrick’s Day celebrationVideo
A Clairton man remains jailed after being charged with shooting someone early Sunday during St. Patrick’s Day revelry in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood. The victim, who was shot in the buttocks, was taken to UPMC Mercy hospital. City camera footage showed Joseph Vance Brown, 20, fire multiple shots after running...
Revolving door: Pittsburgh police leadership in limbo as 5th chief of Gainey’s tenure takes over
Not much can faze Elizabeth Pittinger, the eyes of police oversight in Pittsburgh for the past 27 years. But even the longtime executive director of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board is alarmed by the recent revolving-door leadership that has fomented turmoil in the 758-officer force. “We’ve never had anything...
Controller’s audit finds no major misuse of city credit cards by Pittsburgh parks officials
Pittsburgh Controller Rachael Heisler said Thursday her auditors found no widespread abuse by parks officials who use city credit cards, or p-cards, to pay vendors. The release of the 21-page audit, which recommended reforms to p-card policies, capped a 17-month inquiry that was sparked by a city administrator’s move to...
5 years after covid struck, Pennsylvanians assess pandemic’s impact
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5 years after covid struck, Pennsylvanians assess the pandemic’s impact
Five years ago this month, Pennsylvania’s chief executive scrambled to manage a global health crisis for which no one in the world was prepared. As leader of the nation’s fifth most-populous state, then-Gov. Tom Wolf found himself winging it like everyone else. He had no playbook for covid-19. “It looked...
